Bryce Heinbaugh is CEO of IEN Risk Management Consultants, an employee benefits consulting firm, and President of Concierge Nurse Navigators, a clinical patient care navigation organization.

How did you get your start in the benefits industry?

Oddly enough, this is all I've ever done in my professional adult career. At the age of 22, during my final semester of undergrad, I found out I needed to have emergency open heart surgery. As I went through the recovery process, I began to try to solve the problem of how I could acquire health insurance as an "uninsurable" individual. Exactly 363 days later, I started a health insurance agency. I didn't know what I was doing, but I figured, "I have a personal example, I have credibility having gone through this, and I think I can help small businesses in this space." Those first few years were not easy. It was very difficult to cold call and knock on doors. A colleague suggested I enroll in a health care MBA program at a university in Cleveland. He said, "I understand you're self-employed and not interested in climbing the corporate ladder, but this isn't necessarily about the education; it's about the handshakes and the social capital you don't currently have."