Starkey Sound Bites: Hearing Aids, Tinnitus, and Hearing Healthcare

A Discussion with Legends of the Hearing Aid Industry

• Starkey • Episode 62

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In a special episode of Starkey Soundbites, we welcome two hearing aid industry legends: Starkey's founder and chairman, Bill Austin, and Karl Strom, Editor-in-Chief of Hearing Tracker, for an enlightening discussion hosted by Dr. Dave Fabry. The episode outlines the journey of innovation that led hearing aids to have all of the remarkable capabilities they have today and recounts the transition from custom-made hearing aids to digital hearing aids, and to today’s devices that offer a range of beneficial features for overall health monitoring and connectivity.  

After more than six decades in the hearing industry, Bill Austin shares what he has learned throughout his impressive career, and his experience with the many groundbreaking developments that have changed countless people’s lives. He discusses his fascinating journey in the industry, starting with how he began making ear molds and later developing in-the-ear (ITE) hearing aids. Mr. Austin’s unique strategies, such as offering all-make-repair service and ensuring fast delivery, have transformed the hearing aid market within the US and globally. 

Karl Strom reflects on the changes he has seen in the hearing industry throughout his career and emphasizes the importance of honest reporting in disseminating information to patients and providers. This episode presents an inspiring testament to the transformational potential of technology when used for the betterment of humanity. 

 

Link to full transcript here. 

Introduction and Industry Legends

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to a very special issue of Starkey Sound Bites. I'm Dave Fabery, Starkey's Chief Hearing Health Officer. And with me today, this is a topic and a podcast that I've really been looking forward to for a long time. Two, I don't think it's it's hyperbole to say, two industry legends who've been witness to and instrumental in the development of the hearing aid industry, continuing to impact it and report on it and chronicle it as we've been discussing here prior to turning on the camera today. First, Mr. Bill Austin, uh Starkey's founder and chair, and as well Carl Strum, who is currently the editor-in-chief of Hearing Tracker, and also someone that I've known both of you for, I hate let's just say a few decades. A little, a little while. And you know, it it's really a privilege to sit with both of you today and have a conversation a little bit about the way that you both have innovated in this industry from different ends of the spectrum and reported on it and continue to impact the industry in many ways today. And Bill, you can shrug all you want, but your humility is in my mind, you know, it's you've made a tremendous, tremendous impact on this industry. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00

And we have, and and we're the young pups here. I've got 30 years, you've got 40 years, and Bill has 62. 62 years. I mean, and I've I've written articles before and said that, you know, Bill uh more than anybody I know has had the kind of a front row seat to the hearing industry for first 62 years.

Evolution of Hearing Aid History

Pre-Electric Era and Acoustic Devices

SPEAKER_01

Through the history of hearing aids, there's various new inventions, great new inventions. And if you look back in the archives, you find that there's those things were thought of before. And not only that, fairly well stated before as far as explaining to patients how hearing aids work and what they can expect and what they can do. So I think that hearing aid history is block if you block it into pre-electric hearing aids, which is the acoustic devices. And those acoustic devices were designed to fit in canes, walking sticks, fans, there were bone conduction fans and air conduction fans and various bells, tubes, horns. And those devices certainly helped people for a long time. In fact, there was such a proliferum of those devices that in the in the late, there were big catalogs showing all manner of them that you could look for the device you thought you would like to try to get some help from. A lot of otosclerosis then. The help that was supplied was limited. They didn't have the power to really help bad hearing losses. But what happened is they were better than nothing. It gave you a little boost. And so people were appreciative of that. They got a few more cues and they were able to hear.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and it's sort of interesting you you bring up the pre-electronic era, because I think the way I'd like to channel the discussion is really on the technology and on the process, because you've been highly influential in the process of dispensing and how hearing aids are sold in the market, and you've been so over decades. But in that pre-electronic era, many people who are new to the profession may, you know, have been interested in the past few years that there were bone conduction hearing aids that would actually vibrate your teeth. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

That was a common process used in the late 1800s. They would uh create uh a hearing fan that was bakelite, uh, was uh thin plastic, and the person would have a fan, and on the back of the fan there was a network of strings that went out to the edges, which you could apply tension to the fan and get just the right tension for the right vibration from the sound. So when someone was speaking, like in church and minister, the wearer could discreetly put the edge of the fan between the teeth and bite it, pull on the strings, and uh direct the fan towards the kind of direct it discreetly towards the sound source and help their hearing. So and there were other, you know, all kinds of efforts that were made. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02

And the fan one was a really a multi-purpose, multi-function device in the sense that if it got a little hot in the place of worship, you could use it as a fan. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01

They didn't have air conditioning then. The one fan I showed you, Carl, was actually given me by the patient who used it. And I fit her with a hearing aid. She'd lived that long. Wow. And it was, you know, many years ago. And but that's what I mean about if you're old enough, then you remember the original guys. Right. Right. So I I knew people who use those, who use carbon electric hearing aids and vacuum tube aids. We still service vacuum tube aids when we first started all make repair.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

And you probably still saw some of the A and B battery types of A. Absolutely. Yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And when you came in, you would have to you would show the ladies how they could harness those things up and not have anyone see them.

SPEAKER_02

So cosmic cosmetics have always been.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Where with the bigger skirts of the day that wasn't noticed. Right.

SPEAKER_02

So those were the early days of powered devices, but they used carbon. Carbon batteries were the first powered, weren't they? Aaron Ross Powell The microphone was carbon. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

The battery was not carbon. What was the battery composition? The battery composition was it wasn't mercury, no. It was alkaline.

SPEAKER_02

Oh.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Okay. So yeah. They had that battery as a source of power to the microphone. Okay. The microphones were big. Enormous. So you'd wear them outside on your chest.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Looked like you had a big metal. Right. And on the back you could adjust the volume.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And uh you got a little better boost than you could get out of the acute the fans of the acoustic things.

SPEAKER_00

Trevor Burrus And everybody in my generation saw the you know the church the church microphones that you picked up from the plugged in.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, like uh an old telephone.

SPEAKER_00

Aaron Powell That's the first thing that I remember about the in the in the early 60s of the you know, mid-sixties about hearing aids.

SPEAKER_02

Trevor Burrus Absolutely. Yeah. And then we saw also in the museum some of the early hearing aids from the early 50s. Hearing aids were among the very first medical devices, certainly, to use integrated circuits and transistors. Transistors first. Integrated circuits came later.

SPEAKER_01

Transistors came in the early 50s. And vacuum tube aids came in the early 20s. Right. That's uh so there was the World War II was in there, and there was a big focus on supplying the war effort. And so hearing aid kind of stayed at its point that it was in in the 30s, you know, evolving slightly, but still vacuum tubes.

SPEAKER_00

And there were a lot of interesting.

SPEAKER_01

People tried to make them smaller.

SPEAKER_00

You said that sonotone was like one of the one of the original kind of families of it, and and others branched off of it. But there were a lot of hearing aid companies. Like you you showed us a zenith hearing aid company. Yeah. So there were a lot of different companies.

Evolution of Vacuum Tube Aids

SPEAKER_01

A lot of different companies. In the US and Europe, there were so many different people trying to make hearing aid hearing devices. Most of them didn't do too much volume. If they and so you see a rare model now and then. A company that went away was Jim Earphone GEM, and they made quite a few hearing aids, but they vanished from the scene. Acoustic on the first electronic hearing aid company and Sonitone, which started in about 1912, were the two big, big hearing aid companies that spawned off everything underneath them. Now, E.A. Myers, uh I think he started on his own with Radio Air in Pittsburgh. He was separated from the other guys. And that came out of the idea of a radio where you'd use a vacuum tube radio after they were first made and you could turn up the volume. So his hearing aids were table models like radios, the first ones. And uh in the meantime, other people were making smaller vacuum tube aids and EA Myers, you pointed out that E.A.

SPEAKER_00

Myers, his his uh his daughter had married Sam Weibarger.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, in fact, I think that might have been a granddaughter.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Because EA Myers was an older guy, and the company was EA Myers and Sons.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

So when he started, he was there, you know, a couple of years, and then it was the torch was passed to the Sons. And then I think one of the sons' daughters married Sam Leibarger.

SPEAKER_00

And and Sam Leibarger was oftentimes thought of as kind of the grandfather of acoustical standards. And he served on a lot of ANSI committees, did a lot of groundwork for modern hearing aids.

SPEAKER_01

Trevor Burrus, Jr. They made bone oscillators that were used not only for hearing aids, but for uh testing hearing, for bone conduction tests. And uh a lot of the audiometers were using radio air oscillators.

SPEAKER_00

And not not to not to but to stick with Sam Leibarger for a moment. He had the Leibarger half-gain rule. You've seen all of these different strategies for fitting hearing aids at the same time from that era all the way up to now. And I'm sure you have your own way of uh secret recipe, as you will, for fitting hearing aids.

Technological Advancements in Hearing Aids

SPEAKER_01

Look, it's not secret at all. I have a I have ideas. I think about things a lot. But people are looking for the easy way. My ways always require a lot of effort. Hearing is subjective. Hearing is individual, hearing is unique to the human being. So if I want to do a good job, when a patient is in front of me, I'm not thinking about golfing or fishing. I'm not thinking about anything else except that one person. It's all that's on my mind. I'm gathering every bit of information I can get from them because little tiny things give you cues. I listen to what they say, I ask questions, and we do some basic measurements. We look at audiograms, which gives us a general idea. But the audiogram is not a very good predictor because I can have people a patient with a very poor audiogram, very bad audiogram and good dysgram. I can have a patient with much better audiogram and much better discram. I can have a patient with a poor audiogram that doesn't need nearly as much power as most people do, or as the real-ear formula would say you need it. So it's all wildly variant. So if you want to do a really good job, you just have to listen to the patient. They used to say, well, the early hearing aids, those were just amplifying devices. The early hearing aids had a whole series of different receivers for different frequencies. There were ways that we managed sound. But fundamentally, if you give a person a clean sound that's distortion-free, and you have about a 6 dB project rise slope on it, and you turn it up and you vent it properly, you're there. And that's about as good as you're going to get. When you start trying to jerk the frequency response around according to the audiogram with very steep skirts, you you cause harmonic distortion. The harmonics are no longer in line with the fundamentals. It's screwing everything up. But people who only think audiograms try to follow that around. You can't follow that around. That doesn't that's not right. And the other thing you've got to realize is the fundamental peak of receivers. That's the output transducer. That's the sound that's going into your ear. It doesn't matter what the circuit's doing, that peak is pretty much it's a it's a main factor. So you should know where it is. And it usually works to your advantage with most hearing losses. If you try to reverse slope amplify, you get a hearing aid that sounds just awful. That doesn't work. So even though the sound is down in the lows and it's rising, you still have to fit that with a 6 dB per octave rise, or it won't sound good. And you'll lose low low energy frequent high frequency cues and upward spread of basket. It just doesn't work. And it's it creates a very bad sound. Hearing aids that sound really mellow to a person with normal hearing that don't sound like hearing aids work really good for hearing impaired people. So first we had carbon mics, then vacuum tubes, then transistors, and it got more powerful with vacuum tubes, and it got more powerful than tubes, but the sound didn't get better. It just changed it. And gave you allowed you to address a more severe hearing loss. Then you talked about early transistor aids, and they were big and cumbersome. Eyeglass hearing aids were built into both temples in the very beginning, and thick big things.

SPEAKER_00

And generally only uh amplified unilaterally, too, right?

First In-the-Ear Hearing Aid Development

SPEAKER_01

I mean, Siemens patented the in-year aid in 1928. They couldn't make one. They didn't make one. It was never made. They didn't probably didn't make any kind of an in-year aid until long after we did. But that didn't matter. I mean, it was an idea. People used to try to patent ideas. They still do. I I never tried to patent ideas. I think ideas are a dime a dozen. Accomplishing something is another subject. The first in-year aid was made in this country by a guy in Walnut Creek, California named Les Leslie Leal. It was absolutely huge. So he took a plas a plaster, cast of the ear plaster pairs, which we use in those days, and cast by the lost metal process, like you would make uh jewelry, a hollow shell that would fit this guy's ear. He nickel-plated it, then gold plated it with a thin layer of gold. So now he's had it as a shell, and he could take the the smallest parts at that time, which were still too big to really make in the ear hearing aids for anyone. But the size that Dahlberg used on his first miracle ear aid, that would fit inside this thing because the guy's ear was so big. And he made that but couldn't make any more. Then you know, because nobody had ears that big. Then a couple years later the parts were getting smaller. So by 1960, 61, they were trying to introduce that as a possible solution. I said at the time, it it's not a good solution because you can't modify it, because it's it's cast metal, you grind through the thin metal. And you're doing ear moles in the and I was doing ear moles, so I said, Oh, I'll just you know hollow out the ear molds and I can make them. So it wasn't my idea. And by the way, the first tur directional, which I said made with what was made by Martin Witkowski at our Wilco factory, that wasn't really his idea. That idea came from the Bosch company. You know, fuel injections. Well, at one time they made hearing aids, but they did they were a creative German company, like many German companies were. And before World War II, a guy at Bosch wrote a patent for a directional microphone. And then it just went into the wayside, and nobody ever thought about it again until Witkowski started reading the patent and tried to make one by hand and did successfully in the first directional microphones. Even the ones that were sold to Mako or the early Mako directional behind-the-year hearing aids were made by hand by by Wilco at the but then we couldn't we couldn't do them at scale. So that went to Knowles electronics to make.

SPEAKER_00

Explain how you evolved into being such a powerhouse for in-the-ear hearing aids, and and uh you know, one of your I don't know, it one of your many legacies I think is is really kind of getting the whole ITE hearing aid thing rolling in the in the United States.

Impact of Values on Starkey's Success

Innovations in Hearing Aid Manufacturing

SPEAKER_01

Well, there were reasons that I did it. People psychologically, if you have hearing loss, the ears the hearing aid should go in your ear. That's empty space. You know, you don't put your eyeglasses on the back of your head to see or your eyes in front. So it it it it makes sense to the patient. Secondly, if it's custom formed to the ear, you know, it'll ride with them. If they're playing tennis or moving around, they could do anything. And thirdly, if you eliminate the tubing resonance from running through the tube, you can shift your energy peak a little higher, which is good because most losses are higher frequency in nature. You need more energy out there. And you could get subtle high-frequency cues off of the PINA from PINA effect. So there's a reason why I thought it was better. The reason why it was worse for all the other hearing aid companies is they were harder to make. But remember, I said I never minded working hard. All my ideas required hard work. They would require skill and hard work. So when we send a person to open a new production around the world, which we were opening, we would not send an ear mold tech with less than five years experience of making shells for our hearing aids to open, be there for the opening. Because if they hadn't made literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, they couldn't get the nuances. Right. So anyway, I there was a reason why I wanted to make them. But the reason why Starkey is successful goes back to the reason that we're in business in the first place. And that's why we've lasted. I attribute it. I don't attribute it to being smart businessman, clever salesman, laddie-da, what anything else than this. I came to Minnesota because I wanted to be a missionary doctor. I intended to enroll in the University of Minnesota Medical School. I took a job making earpieces to make enough money to pay for my tuition. I had never had a quarter's tuition paid for me in my life, no books paid for me. There I was going to school, and an old man with a bad, bad hearing loss came in and they weren't able to help him. They called me upstairs and I went to work on the guy. I made him uh perfect fitting earpieces that wouldn't leak. He's having a lot of feedback trouble before. And when he could hear, I saw on his face, I saw on his face what it meant to him to hear. I was just stunned because I never thought hearing was very important before that. I thought I was going to be a doctor and save lives. I was going to do important work, what is two-bit hearing aid business. And when I saw what it meant to the patient, then I knew it was important. And so I wrote home on the city bus in the cantilever of the bus, there was a quote: the true path to humility is not to stoop till you're lower than yourself, but rather to stand at your true height against some greater nature that will show the real smallness of your greatest greatness. I saw that quote. I said, that's how I feel. I wanted to be challenged. So I got home and I sat on the upstairs single bed cot that I had to sleep on where I was staying, and I started talking to myself, just like I'm talking to you guys. And I said, Bill, the reason you want to be a doctor is so you can help people. If you do this work, you'll be able to help people and you won't kill anyone. And so I the next thing I said was, How many people as a doctor can you help a day? Twenty, twenty-five, night will fall, you'll get up the next day, another twenty, twenty-five, and you'll spend your life and you'll help a village. And I said, Bill, you're you're not likely to impact the world. I decided right at that moment that I could be challenged by helping more people through the hands of many. I knew that I couldn't do much with my two hands. But I knew that if I could find other people that accepted the values that I thought were important, if they respected those values and accepted them as their own, then we could build leverage and we would stand on those values. And the leverage would be the hands of many of them that would pull on the the leverage that we had to move the world. That's what I felt. And so I said, if you do this work, you can impact the world. I had a little rental house that I bought from scrapping cars. That's why I have those old cars over there today. I feel so bad about killing. I slayed a lot of them. Anyway, I during the Korean War, metal was had a good price, and I took them down. I bought this little rental house because I had more money than I needed to buy my first car. I bought my first car when I was not even quite 15, just about 15. I knew as soon as I was 15 I could get a learner's permit. I had a kid lined up down the road that was 16 and had a driver's license. And if he could ride with me, then I could ride. So I bought my car. I had enough money left. I bought this uh little rental house. I sold that house for$3,000. I had to make a profit before I ran out of money. People tell you you got to have financing for three years. You got a lot of, if you start a business, I had enough financing for three months. If I couldn't make it work within three months, I was out of business. And I didn't know anybody that would give me money or loan me money. I wouldn't, I wouldn't ask anyone for I wouldn't ask my father for money for sure, and I wouldn't ask anyone else. Because how why are they going to risk money on a crazy crazy kid? 19. So anyway, I'm I've got I've got this idea, and it was very slow for a long time. I had this to sell hearing aids to to pay the bill and worked on developing the in-the-year hearing aid. I had enough far enough along that I started open a little factory and hired a guy from the Tone Master Hearing Aid Company in Peoria, Illinois, to to be the production manager.

SPEAKER_00

And was he the was he the gentleman you said made the best hearing or made best ear molds that you ever saw?

SPEAKER_01

Heavens know that was Paul Jensen.

SPEAKER_00

Paul Jensen.

SPEAKER_01

So I made my own ear molds then. And Paul made better hearing aid ear molds than I'd ever been able to make because he he developed a process of pouring the shasting the shells hollow. I was taking a solid block and grinding them out was laborus, and it left the inside rough and varying thicknesses of shell, you know, and you'd have to leave it thick enough so you couldn't see through it, but thin enough that you could get all your parts, and it was a little more work, a lot more work. I took the parts over to this is early 1964, over to Goldentone. And Goldentone was owned by uh a guy that owned a TV store named Johnston, and he'd acquired the Goldentone Hearing Aid Company, which had been existent. He sold Zenith TVs. And anyway, Ray Clark, a World War II veteran that flew for England in War II, had invented a cattle prod. Johnston said, I'll trade you the hearing aid company for the cattle prod. Well, the cattle prod never went anywhere. And the hearing aid company didn't either. They were sitting in the building owned by Dan Lang and Henry Kuzman. And they he hadn't paid the rent in over six months to Dan Lang. Dan owned the building, and they didn't know what they were going to do. And I came in and I said, I've got these components, and this is, I want to make these hearing aids. And Ray Clark said, Well, we can't do that, but he showed me these old golden tone eyeglass aids on other AIDS. I said, No, I'm not interested. This is what I want. And I started to leave, it was by the front door, and a voice came from the back room and said, Don't leave. I think we can do that. And so it was Dan Lang. I went back there. And so he started making hearing aids for me. And I was supposed to get$15 a hearing aid override on any that Golden Tone sold. Took them in my car to the first IHS convention they ever went to, paid the expenses, signed up some people to buy the aids, Milt Tavel in Indianapolis, Maury Perlman in Louisville, Kentucky, Lee Schaefer in Rochester, New York. They were all good customers that I brought on board. And but they never could pay me because they never had a lot enough money. So I went on my way, determining that wasn't going to work, and just kept evolving and making my own hearing aids.

SPEAKER_00

And Bill, that that was the that was the era of single-line dispensing, too, right?

Establishment of All-Make-Service Business

SPEAKER_01

I mean, yeah, pretty much single, single-line. You had a brand and that was it.

SPEAKER_00

You stuck to it. So how did you get your feet in the door of the of of those of those businesses and get get Starkey kicked over?

SPEAKER_01

Well, that was it. At that time I couldn't get decent service. So I I didn't like the way it was being done. And so I started an all-make service business. And I I started uh policies that were just different than anyone else. I they were all parts in labor at that time. And uh you just pay to have your hearing aid repaired. And they'd charge you for a new receiver, this or that, something else. You'd wear it two days and maybe drop it on the floor, the microphone. They'd say, Well, it's the microphone this time, they'd charge you again. There was no all the only warranty was on the part they replaced, and it was always a different part. I didn't like the whole system. It was set up for being dishonest and cheating the patients. So I said, We're gonna charge a flat charge. No matter what's wrong, we'll take care of it. We'll service any kind of hearing aid made, including even old vacuum tube aids. We serviced everything. And we said, and we made them look like new when we sent them back. And I said, you know, for the eyeglass aids, a lot of the some of the dealers were afraid to heat and bend them because you could damage the electrical components? Yeah, you could damage it. You had to do it just right. I knew how to do it, but they didn't know how to do it, a lot of them. And I said, go ahead and heat them and bend them. If you break them, we'll take care of it. No charge, we'll re-re-case them. Because they need to fit decently. I wanted patients to be happy with hearing aids because I thought anyone saying something bad about our business not only reflected on the person that sold it in the company, but it reflected on the entire industry. And it made it it it and it kept people from coming forward that needed help and should get help. So our policies were designed to help the dispenser help the patient, to please the patient and back them up. Well, that became a popular concept. Within two years, we were the world's largest service place for all makes of hearing aids. And so I kept working on the end-year aids, but that gave me entree to the dealers across the country. Even if they sold something else, they sent service to us. Right. And once they knew me, they began to decide they could trust me. Sure. And I did the best I could for them every time.

Taking a Leap into Building Hearing Aids

SPEAKER_00

And was the leap to building hearing aids and and and selling them to these people? Was that a was that a big risk for you?

SPEAKER_01

No, it wasn't it wasn't a big risk. What I I said, I said to people, I would have a hearing aid that we'd finished after the pickup was gone in front of our building in St. Louis Park.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

Building a Reputation

SPEAKER_01

And that last mail pickup had gone downtown. The last pickup was like 5.30 or something. Sure. It were six. If you didn't get it done by then, it didn't go till the next day. And so I'd take one hearing aid, drive it downtown in my car, walk up on the back loading dock at the main Minneapolis post office, talk to the people there, and ask them which mail, which bin was going out next to be sorted. And I would get, be sure it was in the right bin, it went out. Because I said the hearing aid is important to the patient. It might be a graduation, a wedding anniversary, who knows what it might be. But any day without hearing is not a good day. So I said they need it back. And people would tell me when I'm getting in my car going downtown, the people who work for me, said, that's stupid because it costs more for the gas to drive back and forth, even though gas was cheap then, than we'd make in profit on that transaction. But I didn't mind losing money occasionally to keep our reputation really good. Our reputation had to be as good as it could possibly be. And I said, our reputation has to be good because it's our most valuable asset, and we're going to do something besides just repairs. We're going to I knew we were going to sell them hearing aids when I was satisfied that we had a good product. I still wasn't satisfied. I couldn't make adequate venting for the mile losses. Vents at those days in the in the air haze, we'd put tubes through and it didn't do it. Finally I had a guy, Austin Reynolds in Rochester, Minnesota. He came back and forth. This is already in 72 when I'm getting at the end of my design. I'm making them for other people. And in 72, during the summer, I guess it was, he was saying, Oh, I'm still occluded, I'm still occluded. It went back and forth. Finally, I can't we cast through a great big cast through vent like we use today. And I thought surely we would have too much feedback, but we didn't. And the guy was happy, there it was. His name was Austin Reynolds. So then I knew how to vent. It wasn't the tubes, it was those cast-in vents that we've used ever since. And I gotten Harold uh Paul Jensen. He was making all the molds for Starkey. Harold Starkey had a little ear mold company, and that's how he got the name. And I wanted his shells. I knew I needed the shells. So August of 1970, I bought that little ear mold company for$13,000. It wasn't worth 13 cents. But it was incorporated, and my business wasn't. It was much bigger. What I really was buying was Paul Jensen. And I could have tried I could have hired Paul Jensen, but I didn't want to, I couldn't do that to Harold. He was a nice little guy and it went, I put him out of business. So I bought his business. He retired to Black Duck, Minnesota with his wife, who was a registered nurse to run a nursing home. Paul came to work for me. We had beautiful shells. Then I had to work on the performance. So I now I could fit the mile losses, but how could I fit the most profound losses? Well, Westinghouse in Canada was making an integrated circuit at that time, which was the most powerful thing I could find. When we put that integrated circuit into the hearing aid for our push-pull, really bad losses instead of the transistor circuit that we were making. And we made those transistors. We assembled the circuits, you know, with the capacitors and resistors, all of these peripheral parts that you have to have. But what we did was we beta checked our components to make sure they matched. And other companies would get components that were graded. You get a transistor that's this grade, another transistor that's this grade, another transistor who's that grade, and the factories would take from each grade to make a hearing aid. The hearing aid would vary all over the place. By beta matching the hearing aids, I was able to get a little more dynamic range, the components, and make a better sounding device. So we got a better sounding device than most of the hearing aids that were being sold. We had nice shells, we had everything, and then we got the push full circuit, and I was able to fit the worst hearing losses, really bad hearing losses. I could fit everything with an Indiana. So I said, we're ready. January 1st, 1973. I sent out a letter. There was no advertising, no flyers, no brochures. I sent it out with this the statement. The December statement came January 1st. I'd say phone postage.

SPEAKER_02

I would only letter, was that when you said here's the hearing aid worthy of your consideration?

SPEAKER_01

Yes. I said we do something other than make earmalls and service hearing aids. We make an in-the-air hearing aid worthy of your consideration. That was the words. I said, and then I went on to say the provision of better hearing is unpredictable at best. No one knows how someone else hears except the patient. So our hearing aids will be on 90-day trial. Right. That was considered heresy. Instead, the industry changed. We we said the hearing aids have to be provided on trial. And I felt that because the industry couldn't afford a bad reputation from somebody. I said they don't buy a piece of plastic, they buy better hearing. And that's unpredictable at best. So we it would be unconscionable for us to take their money for something that they thought they were buying that they didn't get. So I said that. And then I went on, the last thing I said was furthermore, we address the hearing loss, not the pocketbook. So if you have a patient who can't afford our hearing aid, just write Starkey fund on the order, and we'll provide the same hearing aid for your poorest patient as we do, the wealthiest at no charge. And it was a trust thing only. They didn't have to send in a financial statement. And our loss and damage coverage, you didn't need to send in a police report. It was all based on trust, which some of the companies tried to institute. And most of our people were very trustworthy. And so those were our policies from the beginning. And they were policies that were appreciated by the dispensers. Our hearing aids worked really good. And our problem was keeping up. We didn't have a problem with advertising or trying to get our problem was keeping up with the orders because it just kept spreading. Trevor Burrus, Jr. They were nice-looking aid. The edges had to be rounded, edges, the battery doors had to be rounded. There was no square edges on it, so it would blend with the ear. And I said, you know, we're not making it invisible. It's non-obtrusive. When you look at someone, you should look at their eyes, not their what the heck of that on their ear. Your eye shouldn't be drawn to the ear. Not that it's not there, but it shouldn't be drawn there. And so those were our guidelines of what we did.

SPEAKER_02

So you were servicing products that other single-line manufacturers were, you know, and you were you were providing them with an opportunity then. And for the next decade from early 70s until 83, you continued to innovate in making better performing, smaller custom devices. Trevor Burrus, Jr. I did. And then 83. You know, the other thing I think that pe everyone remembers in 1983, President Reagan. And you know, you fit him with a custom device when BTEs were the norm. Because this is now an area that I was in in the early 80s, 70 to 80 percent of devices were behind the ear, but they were also fitted on one ear. And I think that's something that people don't talk about a lot, that you not only fit then President Reagan with a custom hearing aid, you fit him in both ears. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I'd been fitting people with both ears since the 60s when I started. I didn't fit one ear.

SPEAKER_02

But you were zigging when other people were zagging. People were concentrating on one ear and you were fitting. What what led you to that revelation? Trevor Burrus, Jr. People hear better with both ears.

SPEAKER_01

That's all.

SPEAKER_00

And there was a lot of you know, like Ernie Zelnick and guys like that were starting to accumulate some some good evidence for the time.

SPEAKER_01

So yeah. In the 1970s, as I said early in the 70s, uh 1970, 70, 71, we did the real ear microphone with Dick Martin. Then we started making devices that would help people with niche problems that you couldn't make money on it because there wasn't enough volume, like headband bone conductions for people with atresia ears, uh, power stethoscopes for hearing-impaired doctors. Not a lot of doctors wanted to admit to a hearing loss. They thought it made them look incompetent. So I built it into the stethoscope tubing and made it black like the rest of the assembly. And hopefully, you know, the patient wouldn't know any difference. Not only that, the doctor could leave it in his ear and and it had a hearing aid function on so he could hear and then switch it into the step mode.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And you did a lot of that. I did creative with your with your engineers and all of the books, the counseling book, they said hearing aid is more than the device itself.

SPEAKER_01

It involves the family and we need oral rehabilitation.

SPEAKER_00

I have I have articles from in hearing instruments of you going back to the back to The late nineteen sixties anyway. There's probably some before that.

SPEAKER_01

So I I worked on that stuff.

unknown

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01

I we made the first tinnitus masquerades and tinnitus mascars for a guy in in Portland, Oregon that was re researching tinnitus.

SPEAKER_02

Vernon.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Jack Vernon. Jack Vernon. And so we started working with him in the in the 70s. So anyway, as the evolution goes along, we were selling the RE1, twos, and threes and fours to universities to do probic research. We made the Hearing Science Lab with classic experiments in acoustic. So they could have gate, it had gates and filters. You could do all simulate all kinds of things. You could make any kind of hearing aid you want off of this big thing, but you could do other classic experiments. We made HAL, the Hearing Aid Laboratory, which had a little acoustic chamber and you could measure responses like a fry box. We made an egg chair for testing, which was spun mold out of fiberglass, which was an egg that was padded inside and had speakers as a little bit of an interesting test environment for people.

SPEAKER_00

And we all kinds of And you did some of the we were talking about you did some of the first real-year stuff with and got some of that rolling as as well.

SPEAKER_01

That was early on. Okay. And then we just kept evolving different things. All I did was I kept working on trying to help find ways to help people hear better. And I think that's why Starkey's still around today and successful, is because our focus has been on what serving better. We have to serve better today than we did yesterday, and we have to serve better tomorrow than we serve today. We're always working on improving and climbing that mountain. And I think if I can reach tomorrow, it's going to be beautiful. And I think I'll just have to climb a little bit higher. And we're getting there. We're really getting there. I said in an article in 1980 or something, I think that if you said that what's going to what's the future of the hearing aid industry or hearing aid business, I would say there is no future. The hearing aid, the future will involve more than just hearing people. It will be a communication bridge across language barriers, distance barriers, hearing loss is just a barrier. We need connectivity to clouds and other devices today to get all the information we need. So the hearing aid has to do that. In 1998, in a meeting that we called of engineers and people from around the world in Germany, I described this further because at that time it wasn't possible in the 80s.

SPEAKER_00

And you had, I mean, you had the present company included some real legends that you've employed over the years. Dave and Dale Thorstead and Jim Curran and Earl Harford and Dave Preeves. And I mean you can go on and on. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01

You know, people are that are employed because they want to be here. And as the keeper of the faith, I I can't let the ownership go to a bunch of people. Not because I want it or need it, but because they'll decide they've got to sell out for money. And I know I won't sell out. I'll keep reinvesting that in the future because that's where I think we should go for the people we serve. We have to serve better. And we can do so much more. That's this is the it's a new generation of hearing aids now. So hearing aids have gotten smaller and smaller. And then we had digital hearing aids. Well, at the beginning, people said, oh my gosh, digital is wonderful. It's so much better. Well, the real reason for digital is so you can help people hear better. And so we had to evolve our ability to do that. And it took a little while to do that, and we are doing that today. And we've made really good digital hearing aids. They've gotten better and better and better, and the other companies have, but all of us have made hearing aids. And they we made the first device now that's not a hearing aid. I still don't know what to call it. But it's it's beyond hearing aids. And because it doesn't have the limitations that hearing aids have always had. And so once those those limitations are taken away, we're able to do a lot more. But now that we can help people with normal hearing without having them feel like they're wearing a device that they're hearing normally only better, they have super hearing, we can we can start adding features that make a hearing aid ubiquitous. You you can't be without one. It's like an iPhone because it will be, you know, your monitoring system for your health will report that. It'll be a therapy system if you have, if you fall, it'll know before you fall. It'll know that you're in a candidate for falling, that you're going to be falling soon. It's going to do so much to help people. And that's what I said years ago. We're going to help people be healthier, live longer, and perform the task better. That's what a hearing aid does. A hearing aid will help you perform the task better because it helps you hear and respond to people. It helps you perform the task better because you can tap your ear and connect to the cloud and say, who hit the most home runs last year? You can find out anything you want to know just like that. The direction of the airport, what's the weather in Tokyo? It doesn't matter. You can ask, and it's all there.

SPEAKER_00

And the and the future with what the hearing aids will talk to you in the future.

Innovative Solutions for Hearing Loss

SPEAKER_01

They'll talk back, they'll recognize your voice and other voices. Just we have all of this potential coming at us. It's coming very fast. And I realized that we couldn't do that with the people we had. We'd been trying to make progress for years with the people we had. And I kept telling them, you know, we're not we're not getting anywhere, we're not getting anywhere. And that's when we uh sent out a search for Achin and for a new head of engineering. And uh we wanted to go outside the industry, and he was a head of artificial intelligence at Intel. And so the guy was deep in experience and very sharp. He'd made Siri and what is it, all kinds of things. Oh, yeah. Did the robotic shows for the Super Bowl and other drones. So he's just a very visual, brilliant, creative guy. And so I it ended up that I met him. He came here, and he really hadn't intended to go to work, but he'd written a paper about me. I'd never heard of anyone in my life, and there has never been anyone since that had written written a college paper, thesis, or uh paper about me. And he'd chosen a public company, Microsoft and a private company, uh Starkey. And anyway wanted to meet me. And so I took a big board, like you see the horse races at the track going up the board, and you, you know, the guy that gets to the top wins the teddy bear or something. And and so I said, this is what we're gonna do. These are all the things we're gonna do to help people live longer, perform the task better, be healthier. And I said, some of them are gonna be harder than more difficult than others. And I said, so that's okay. That's just one of the measurements we're gonna do. We're gonna do all these things. And that's what this, that's what we're that's our future. That's what we're dedicated to doing, is making a device that will help people better than we've ever helped them before.

The Future of Hearing Aids

SPEAKER_00

And that's why when I asked you in another interview, what's the future of hearing aids, you said there is no future in hearing aids. There's a future in in these in these new types of devices. Right. Of course they are going to compensate for that's where the future will be. Right.

SPEAKER_01

So because we focused on that, yeah, it's taken years and we've got billions and billions of bytes of sound information now that we're working. Our AI is getting smarter and smarter and smarter. So this Achen estimates we're five years ahead of anyone else. And he said within another couple of years he'll be ten years ahead because we're we're doing unbelievable things. In the meantime, we keep trying to go to the next we'll keep trying to go to the next level. But Achen said, I want to spend what the rest of my life trying to help people and do something good instead of making uh gadgets and things. So robots. So he's signed up and for the right reasons. And that's why our good people sign up because they buy into being part of that. We're one team, no one can do it alone. But together we can impact the world in a positive way, and the world needs that now. And it needs something else that we have at Starkey. Our carry that we reflect to people. It's deeply embedded in this company. Right. Deeply embedded. And so that respect that each individual is worth the best we can do for them, is part of our culture and part of why we go to work. It makes our life meaningful, gives us purpose. And the people who buy into that find that this is a good place to work.

SPEAKER_00

I've also gotten the sense that that there is some and there's a fair amount of levity that or of your own way of determining which way you're going to go sometimes. I was talking to Earl Harford before he passed and asked him how he started that student education program. And and apparently You didn't think it was going to work necessarily, but you said, well, go ahead and give this a shot. And it it it it really impacted some influential ideologists down the line.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I've always done that. People will do more if they believe in something, if they have a passion for it. And so I may test them. Ideas are a dime a dozen. But if they can beat on the table and say, I can make it work, I will make it work, if they have passion for it, then I'll support it. Because if they didn't have that passion, it wouldn't get there. Right. It wouldn't be that significant. So Earl believed that, and so I support it. We were t oh go ahead.

Legacy of Caring

SPEAKER_00

We were talking about legacy before. What what do you think what what do you think you'll be remembered for, and what do you want to be remembered for?

SPEAKER_01

Here's what I think that I'm remembered by people who will never know me and will never know me, because the caring that I reflect gets reflected to the family and the community. And that it lights an inner light in people, it gives them hope. If they're cared about and someone thinks they're worth it and they have value, all of a sudden someone else will think it they're worth it. So I think probably my biggest legacy may not be hearing aid inventions, although we've tried to push that and make other people keep up with us and copy us. I our policies were very important. But probably the biggest legacy is the caring that the light we reflect.

SPEAKER_00

And you personally have fitted a lot of people all over the world.

SPEAKER_01

A lot of people all over the world. But that's what I think will only think that'll be. That won't be remembered, but it will be become part of life ongoing. So I think as you reflect that light to someone of your you've given your life. You've given a part of your life, a piece of time to them and only them, because they were worth that piece of your life. And when you give that to them, it lights the light inside them, and you can see that reflected back to you, which feels good. You're bathed in the light, it makes you stronger, and you want to go on and do more. But they reflect that light then onto others. And that keeps being reflected forward and forward and forward.

SPEAKER_02

And I think that really summarizes the issue of a hearing aid manufacturer thinking about the technology. But for as long as I've known you, you know, you you operate by the mantra, you know, so the world may hear. And I've been in all corners of the world seeing you provide the opportunity for people to hear and connecting them, providing that light looking forward. And I think it's because you haven't, you've always you've not been paralyzed by the dogma of the moment. I mean, you brought up Leibarger from 1944 said a half-game fitting rule was going to be the key to success in fitting hearing aids. I've watched you develop the WFA fitting model, which is based on super threshold, on audibility. It doesn't even need the audiogram. And because why is that? Because you can scale it and you can get to so many more people in all corners of the world that doesn't depend on plugging something into the wall or using a piece of equipment, but it provides people with the opportunity and the chance to hear. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01

You can quickly arrive at the sweet spot for their hearing. It's scalable. It's something we can do to bring hearing to people all around the world, and it's not possible otherwise.

SPEAKER_02

It is no other way that you could have built that way through audiometers, through a half-game fitting rule.

Scalable and Sustainable Solutions

SPEAKER_01

All you need is too many millions of people, and it takes too long. There's not it's not that much equipment. It's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02

For me, it's the carrying and it's a solution that provides us a scalable and sustainable approach by involving the community and the people that are not there when you're able to go over and teach them and be there and fit them. But in that way, it takes a big, hairy, audacious goal to be able to say, you know, brashly, so the world I'm going to try to do. And I think you take that statement literally because I've seen you get off a bus and fit someone that you saw struggling with hearing in more than one occasion.

SPEAKER_01

That's all I know how to do. So I I have to give what I can. I can't solve all the problems. There are many problems. That one. There always have been. But I can do one thing that I know how to do.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so I must do that one thing. Otherwise, who am I and what am I good for? So it's it's very simple to me. So that's why I think people say, oh, I was a great salesman, or I was this, that, or something else, or Bill Austin was some sort of a genius. I'm not a genius, I'm not a great salesman. I've hired people that are smarter than I am. They're all around here. But what I what I think has kept Starkey going when a lot of companies have gone out of business is that we had one goal. And it wasn't to make money, it was to help people. People want to be helped. They don't want to be outsmarted, they don't want to be duped out of their money, but they're willing to reward pay a good, humble servant that helps them, and that's a reward you've earned. So I've never wanted any money I could make from winning the lottery or Vegas or anywhere else. I want money that's really given to me because I've served well. That's good money. That money has soul. I can do something with that. So it's it's not bad to have competition. I knew we could do it better. And the reason I knew we could do it better is because I was willing to work harder than anyone else. I was willing to stay there really late at night or all night. I used to work all night a couple days a week because I get to be going too fast, otherwise, I had to slow myself down. You worked late into the night in the lab, I've Oh, yeah. I did that on into my 40s and 50s and 60s. Really, I think anyone can be successful in business. They just have to want to be a good servant. That's the only reason a business exists, is so it can serve. So the only thing you need to do is try to serve better. And if you do that, you're in demand.

Anticipating Professional Needs

SPEAKER_00

And in a lot of the early years, Starkey wasn't always known as a technology company like it is today. You oftentimes anticipated, it seemed like you anticipated the needs of dispensing professionals before even they might have been able to articulate. Or you don't disagree.

SPEAKER_01

Aaron Ross Powell No, I don't disagree. Now that we have a real way to progress, that we see a path clear for the future to progress on, we will move forward. And artificial intelligence, machine learning is going to be a big deal, a really big deal.

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Ross Powell Well, and you've proven, I mean, AI is a machine capable of doing you look at some of the visual things that it can do to pick out tumors in the body with much greater precision than generally can better to be able to, you know, even some of the navigation. Better driving, better medicine, better vaccines.

SPEAKER_01

It's going to do huge things.

SPEAKER_02

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: The bridge that it hasn't crossed yet. And imagine, you know, it's the ultimate challenge is it's currently not capable of displaying empathy the way the human can. As you mentioned, you know, that caring element of trying to understand, focus, and be present with every patient that you're with. Your focus is on that patient. And I think as long as clinicians remember that their role more than anything else is you don't know your patient until you know your patient and you have to invest yourself in them in order to give them that opportunity. So far, AI hasn't shown a propensity to be able to do that, that will commoditize or eliminate our role for those who are willing to care enough.

Building a Super Team

SPEAKER_00

You've told me before that there aren't any supermen. There are certain people who are really good at at one or two things, but then you build a team around them and they become supermen.

SPEAKER_01

Well. And women. They're supermen and women because we prop each other up. We all have our flat spots. But that's that's kind of hidden. And you know, if you bring that together, it's like bringing together a lot of facets on a diamond. The light they reflect as you have more facets is even more brilliant. So we bring these facets, different people together with different talents. And the flaws are hidden inside. All that you see outside is the light.

SPEAKER_02

That's a good metaphor. I like it. Aaron Powell You've provided a lot of great quotes over the years that I've heard you say. But one of my favorite is when now, which is almost customary when you speak to our customers or our employees, people inevitably stand up and and applaud you. And when you come up to the front of the room, it said I'm not a big deal.

unknown

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I usually say I don't amount to much, but don't feel bad for me because you don't either.

Changing the World Together

SPEAKER_02

But together. But together and change the world. And I think that's a good way to end this because I think that's your legacy, Bill, is it really is that none of us alone, we can't do much, but together we can and we are changing the world. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01

That was that was the big vision in late February 1961 when I saw the limitations of myself and face them for the first time. I never thought I had any limitations. I was gonna be a great healer. And then I saw I can only do this much. But if I can get other people that agree with me, right, then we can impact the world.

SPEAKER_02

That's your legacy to me. That's it. So thank you for that and for this discussion. And Carl, thanks for leading this discussion.

SPEAKER_00

Well, thank you so much, Bill. Thanks for sharing your thanks, Carl. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you very much. I don't know anything. You know, what can I say? What I've said before. I just I just like to go to work.