It's David vs. corporate Goliath
Story written by Daily Oklahoman, Staff Writer Gypsy Hogan, Photography by Steve Sisney

Taken from the headlines of the Sunday Oklahoman August 29,1999 section C pages 1-2

Longtime patient Larry Hill, left, talks with Scott Sabolich, seated, at the new prosthetic center in Oklahoma City. Three generations of Saboliches have helped Hill over the years, including the eldest, Lester, second from right, and his son John. Scott Sabolich was only 12 when he began working in the family business and had a life-shaping experience.

That's when he began watching his grandfather, Lester J. Sabolich, and his father, John Sabolich, work at fitting amputees with new legs and arms.

"I thought, 'This is really cool. Look at what we're doing for people,' " he recently recalled.

At that early age, he realized that the family was doing more than giving people new limbs. They were giving them back hope, a chance for putting their lives back in place.

"It seeing their faces light up," he said, describing what made him decide at age 12 to follow in the family business, Sabolich Prosthetics & Research Center.

The decision wasn't about money, he said. It was about a different kind of reward, about doing something for people.

Along the way, however, things hit a snag.

The elder Saboliches decided in 1994 to sell the family business-with its international fame and $8 million a year in revenues-to the health care giant Novacare Inc. The family saw it as a way to position for the future in the rapidly changing and merging health care world.

Lester Sabolich agreed to stay on as a consultant. John Sabolich was named national prosthetic director for Novacare and cheif executive officer of Sabolich Co., the new subsidiary.

Scott Sabolich, age 24 at the time, bacame a corporate employee, later to be promoted to clinical manager of the Oklahoma City Lab.
But all was not well.

"They're a publicly held company. They have to do things to impress stock holders," Scott Sabolich said. "I understand that. But I wanted to work for myself and be able to please the patient - and that's what the patient wants too."

That's what Lester Sabolich taught his son John, and together they taught Scott - the patient, the person, comes first.

And that, Scott said, is why at age 28 he has started another family - owned business - Scott Sabolich Prosthetic & Research Center.

The center began seeing his first patients June 28. A grand opening celebration was held last week. The five-year noncompeting clause the family signed has ended, and Novacare has sold its orthotic and prosthetics business to Hanger Orthopedic Group Inc. for $445 million, money desperately needed by Novacare to pay off staggering bank debt.

The Saboliches are hopeful that when Hanger puts its new sign on the building at 4301 N. Classen (property still owned by John Sabolich) that the name Sabolich will no longer be attached.

John Sabolich, recognized internationally for his research and development in the prosthetics field, has set up his entire research lab in his son's new center at 9801 N. Broadway. The man who has been featured on national television and in publications worldwide is now working on applying his revolutionary research giving amputees a sense of touch and feel to diabetics who lose those sensations in their limbs.

"Scott started like I did - working after school, cleaning up," John Sabolich said. "I'm proud of him. He did all this on his own, got the loan and everything.

Last week Scott hired the new office's 10th employee including himself - a cousin and the last Sabolich family member working at Novacare.

Scott's wife, Kim Sabolich, is working in the office. She and Scott met at Novacare where she was doing public relations work.

On the day they left Novacare, they and six others turned in resignations together. They then spent two months putting the new clinic together - a $100,000 remodeling effort.

The Saboliches have been careful not to contact any patients directly, but customers are finding them.

"They find me in the phone book or on the Internet," Scott Sabolich said.

Many had encouraged him to start his own business.
"I had been telling Scott for two years he needed to go out on his own," patient Larry Hill said.

"Scott's just not the corporate type. He's just as nice as he seems. That's the whole family."

Hill is teacher - coordinator for the coorporative education program at Star Spencer High School in the Oklahoma City school district. He met the Sabolich family in 1980 when he lost his left leg above the knee after a shooting accident.

"John's the first one I met. I'll never forget it. ... He just made me feel like I had my life back," he recalled.

Lester Sabolich fitted Hill for his first leg. Hill then watched Scott, the age of his own son, begin working in the business.

"There's a true bonding there. That's why I told him, 'You go out on your own and I'm not going to let you fail. I'm depending on you and I hope you're depending on me,' " Hill said.

So when Hill went to Novacare a few weeks ago and was told Scott Sabolich was no longer there, he began searching.

"I came out here to tell him, 'I'm here,' " he said.

Supporters like Hill are reassuring to Scott Sabolich, who said he feels like he's a David going up against Goliath in starting a small company in the shadows of a corporate giant.

"But I am shocked," he said. "I'm booked two to three months ahead."

Lester Sabolich, the proud grandfather, said he believes his grandson is a natural.

"I've been watching Scott, and I think he's every bit as good as me or Johnny," he said, insisting he has a good eye.

"When I look at this establishment and think of Lester and what he has started with, I know it's a whole new world," said Lorene Sabolich, grandmother of Scott and wife of Lester. "This has all the latest."

She recalled the eldest Sabolich starting with $1,500,working long hours and struggling to meet payroll for 20 years before ever really making any money.

"I got ulcers - lived on a soft diet for two years," Lester Sabolich recalled. "I would go day and night. I didn't give my family the right treatment. I could have done with less money."

His wife Lorene agrees, but then they start to remember how Lester Sabolich would have to wait for the mailman to see if he had a check to deposit to pay a bill.

"It's something to see what this had grown into from when I started," Lester Sabolich said.

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