Devoted Health Co-Founders, Todd Park & Ed Park sit down to discuss their childhood and what drove them to start a company whose mission is to dramatically improve the health and well-being of older Americans, by caring for everyone like family.
Interviewer: “Start with the background. What do we not know? Tell us about your childhood”
Todd: “I was born in Salt Lake City, and my dad graduated from the University of Utah and he got a job with Dow Chemical Company in the middle of Michigan, and that's where Ed was born. And then when I was three and Ed was one my dad got relocated to Grandville Ohio. Dow built a new research center there. And that's where we were raised in a small town called Pickerington in Ohio. So we are small town Midwestern boys.”
On the most memorable aspects of their childhood…
Todd: “A really kind of the overwhelming dominant memory of our childhood is just being constantly bathed in massive unconditional love from our mom and dad. Massive unconditional love. I think of our mom and I literally think of the Sun in the sky.”
Ed: “She was an incredibly strong woman and the most amazing mom that one could possibly ever imagine.”
Todd: ”The love in her hearts for everyone like family is our mother's love for us”
On their relationship as brothers growing up together…
Ed: “Todd was the golden kid. always the teacher's pet like he bought Ms Kennedy in 5th grade and Apple literally every single day”
Todd: “She was such a good teacher!”
Ed: “She was such an awesome teacher but you brought an apple every single day and she loved you for it. And look, I went to the same schools and they're like “oh you're a Todd's brother aren't you?” I went through that in high school when Todd won literally every award that was possible to win.”
Todd: ”Including the spirit award for soccer which is given to the worst soccer player”
Ed:” But all the awards. English public speaking, violin competitions, all of that. You grew up going through all those different pieces. Todd has always been larger than life, and there was always a question of “can I measure up to that?”. And then I realized at some point, I think it was during or after college, that that wasn't the point anymore. It wasn't about measuring up to someone, it's about working with people you love. Once I realized that that was true I'm like “I want to work with that guy” because I love him a lot. He's really competent. I trust him with my life and it's just going to be a lot of fun to work together.
Todd: “ Ed is the most extraordinary human being. He's the most extraordinary person. He's been extraordinary ever since he was a teeny tiny person. I am so blessed that he's my brother. I'm so blessed and when it comes to building something incredibly ambitious like devoted, first of all I would say that even if he were not my brother he would be my number one draft pick by far to partner with to build something like devoted. and the fact that he's also my brother who I love more than life itself, the fact that I get to work with him to build Devoted it's like a gift from God. It makes me so unbelievably happy. Devoted is the company that we have been preparing to build for our whole lives, whether we realized at the time or not. Everything that we have done has been meaningful unto it of itself, but also preparation for doing something like this.
Follow this series to learn more from our co- founders about how Devoted got started, and where we plan on going in the future.
1 фев 2023
