Growing up in Connecticut, Elise Burns didn’t spend much time around animals. For most of her life, she had an intense fear of dogs, despite never being bitten or attacked by one. Her persistent anxiety around canines became so overwhelming, she saw psychologists and behavioral therapists to try to address the problem—to no avail. Left with no other options, her mother got a Lhasa Apso in hopes that Burns would become desensitized. Instead, she says she simply coexisted with the “gremlin dog,” Malcom.
The CEO and founder of Evette tends to get some befuddled looks when she explains her path from a debilitating phobia of dogs to the chief executive of a veterinarian staffing agency—an company she launched in 2016 that generated $35 million in revenue last year. “It was such a running joke when I started a vet staffing company because people who knew me were like, ‘Really? That doesn’t seem like a good mix,’” Burns says. She eventually pushed herself past her phobia, as she didn’t want to pass on her fear of dogs to her children once she had a family. She’s now the proud mother of a Goldendoodle named Charlie.
Burns describes her path as serendipitous. Her mother, Janet, was a single mom and CEO in the healthcare staffing industry and someone Burns leaned on heavily when starting Evette. After toiling around in different sectors, Burns left her position at staffing firm Supplemental Healthcare, saddled with a non-compete for a year. She began to look around and see what other industries needed to revamp their recruiting strategies and found that the veterinary field was about a decade behind in its practices.
Compared to physicians, veterinarians require the same amount of schooling with significantly fewer options in the workforce and a lower financial ceiling. The industry also holds one of the highest suicide rates of any profession in the U.S. due to a decline in those entering the field, Burns says, leading to a burned-out workforce. Research from the Centers for Disease Control found that veterinarians are between two to four times more likely than the general population to die by suicide.
Intrigued by the market opportunity and wanting to help, Burns set about filling the void of veterinary staffing agencies by mimicking the healthcare industry model. She created a salary program and hired vets as employees, streamlining taxes and providing the W-2 workers with medical, dental, vision, and 401(k) plans. Evette covers liability insurance fees and allows the vets to pick their own schedules, and full-time employment is three shifts a week. “It offers that in-between of stability of a clinic role and benefits but the flexibility of not having to be held to production or 60 hours per week,” Burns says.
Today, private equity owns 40 percent of Evette. The rest of the company is held by private investors. It boasts 70 internal employees and more than 300 veterinarians across the country who have stock opportunities.
“They need more support,” Burns says of veterinarians. “They need more options. The suicide rate tells you that, and the mental health issues tell you that. I’m an entrepreneur and want us to be the best and the biggest, but by other companies copying what we’re doing, it means vets across the board getting more of what they need.”
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