CEO Chad Price: Mako Medical Recognized for Hiring Veterans in North Carolina

As announced by Chief Executive Officer Chad Price, Mako Medical has been selected for the Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award. The company will now represent North Carolina in the national selection for the award.

The SecDef Employer Support Freedom Award recognizes companies and organizations that are committed to supporting employees who are in the National Guard and/or National Reserve. The award is the highest honor given by the federal government for supporting these employees.

To be selected for the SecDef Employer Support Freedom Award, a company must be nominated by an employee or their family member (who acts on the employee’s behalf). Nominations are reviewed at the state level, and each state’s committee selects companies to represent that state in one of three categories: public sector, small employer, and large employer.

State representatives are then reviewed by a national board, which comprises business leaders, prior award winners, and officials from the Department of Defense. The national board can select up to 15 winners to win the award, at the board’s discretion.

Being selected to represent North Carolina is a major honor for both Chad Price and Mako Medical. This isn’t the first major award for which Chad Price and Mako Medical have been nominated for employing service members.

Chad Price and Mako Medical were recognized earlier in 2020 by the U.S. Department of Labor. The DOL gave Mako Medical the department’s Hire Vets Medallion Award for employing veterans.

The DOL created the Hire Vets Medallion Award in response to the HIRE Vets Act of 2017. The Medallion award winner is selected based on a company’s number of veterans hired, number of new hires who are veterans, training available to veterans, leadership opportunities for veterans, and veteran-focused programs. This was also a significant honor for Chad Price and Mako Medical.

These awards are meaningful to Chad Price and Mako Medical, not just because they reflect the efforts that the company has made to help veterans but also because hiring veterans is an integral component of the company and its leadership.

CEO Chad Price, Chief Operating Officer Josh Arant, and Vice President Adam Price made a commitment to employ veterans when they founded Mako Medical in 2014, and Adam Price is himself a major with the Army Reserves. Adam Price oversees Mako Medical’s military programs, including a division that comprises entirely veteran employees.

Since 2014, Mako Medical has made many efforts to hire veterans and support its veteran employees in meaningful ways. One of the most notable initiatives was an effort to make sure that 140 veteran employees in Louisiana had time to spend with family members before deploying in 2017.

On an ongoing basis, Mako Medical pays National Reserve and National Guard employees while they attend annual training and on any extended drill weekends that the employees have. Annual training alone is a two-week commitment to pay for these employees. CEO Chad Price and Mako Medical also use a small-team structure that’s akin to the armed services’ model.

In addition to these two veteran-related awards, Mako Medical has accomplished several other notable milestones in 2020. The company was forecasted to break $200 million in revenue during the year before the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the pandemic, the company has helped medical facilities remain open and operational. It’s also the COVID-19 testing partner of the ACC and the Big South collegiate sports conferences. The company has released a new nutrition-focused DNA test as well.

About Chad Price and Mako Medical

Chad Price founded Mako Medical in 2014 and remains the company’s CEO. Before starting Mako Medical, he was the chief marketing officer of Cary Reconstruction and then founded Element Service Group Mechanical LLC in 2012. He has also founded BrideGenie and MakoRx in recent years, and he maintains roles in all of the companies that he helped start.

Mako Medical provides imaging, laboratory, and pharmacy services to healthcare organizations, utilizing robotics, artificial intelligence, and automation to make improvements in the sector. The company is based in Raleigh, North Carolina, and has hundreds of veterans among its employees.