Superman helped rescue a flailing Tampa dot-com. And he will be deeply missed.
Christopher Reeve joined the board of TechHealth Inc. nearly five years ago, when the startup was trying to refine its business model. He was introduced to the company, which manages care for workers' compensation patients, through two of its lead investors. He became its moral compass, said Tom Sweet, TechHealth's chief executive.
"Chris was not interested in becoming involved with a commercial company, but when he understood what we were trying to do, he made an exception," Sweet said. "And he was a pretty active board member, who always kept us focused on delivering a top-quality product."
That meant contracting with only the best doctors and therapists to treat injured workers efficiently and expeditiously. TechHealth, which once struggled financially, has been profitable for the past 18 months, with more than 400 companies as customers. At any one time, about 140,000 workers are being served through its provider network.
Sweet credited Reeve with playing a major role in the company's development, sitting in on board meetings that were sometimes held in his home in New York. In addition to bringing his business acumen and vision to TechHealth, Reeve volunteered to help the company's most severely injured clients in a more personal way: He called them.
"He didn't want to impose himself on people," Sweet said. "But if we identified somebody who maybe was going through the kinds of things he went through, we'd offer it."
Sweet helped arrange one such conversation between Reeve and a 19-year-old girl who had lost a limb.
"At the end of the call, he gave her his private number," Sweet said. "He told her to call any time, night or day, if she needed to talk."
