Base Medical
Meet SCAPE 2022 Cohort Company, Base Medical. With medical backgrounds, this diverse team is disrupting the wilderness medicine and search and rescue training industry with a dedication to empower a safe outdoor community through access to innovative and sustainable education.
Q: What’s your name, title, business?
A: Base Medical LLC, www.base-medical.com
Founder Names:
Teal Harbin, CEO, a future-focused woman striving to do the most good for the outdoor community as she draws upon her experiences as a wilderness medical and rescue provider.
Janet Peterson, CFO, an academic professor leveraging her unique background in wilderness medicine, exercise physiology, and EMS to elevate wilderness medicine instruction.
Tim Durkin, CMO (Chief Medical Officer), an emergency medical and wilderness rescue physician applying his solution-oriented mind to enhance education and training within the Search and Rescue and Mountain Rescue communities.
Q: What does your business do?
A: We provide online, remote, and in-person education in the areas of wilderness medicine and search and rescue. We are dedicated to empowering a safe outdoor community through access to innovative and sustainable education. Our training programs are for every outdoor adventurer, from the volunteer SAR member to the weekend backpacker.
Q: Tell us about your entrepreneurial journey.
A: Base Medical was established by Teal Harbin in 2017 in Tallinn, Estonia while she was living in Europe. The company launched with the only completely online wilderness medicine recertification program and instantly disrupted the industry. Base Medical continued to innovate the delivery of education in the realm of wilderness medicine and search and rescue and quickly outgrew its Estonian roots. The company relocated to Durango, Colorado in late 2020 and now has nearly 6,000 students and some of the largest clients within the industries.
Q: What was the most powerful lesson you learned on this journey?
A: Innovation is not the making of one mind. It is the collective intelligence of many that creates something truly good and sustainable. Conscious effort is needed to create a space that allows for different ideas and perspectives to come together and reach their fullest potential while remaining rooted by common values. The ego and attachment must be silenced in order to visualise the many beautiful colors others bring to the canvas so that a better, more vivid horizon can be painted together.
Q: Why did you apply for the SCAPE Program?
A: We are experiencing growing pains as we scale our start-up. Our concept has been proven but we lack the financial and human resources to properly execute and grow sustainably. We hope to learn how we can better ourselves and our business so that we can move forward to deliver the absolute best for the outdoor community.
Q: What companies inspire you the most (local, national, worldwide)?
A: Airbnb. From being creative enough to see new possibilities, to being brave enough to make it happen, and responsible enough to move forward ethically as a pioneer. Their business model depends on empowering others to succeed. In an odd way, we are very much like Airbnb, in that we are empowering others with the capability of providing high quality wilderness medicine and SAR education. Our success depends on the success of our clients and the community. When we launched, many thought our concepts were too radical and could not see the future like we did. We are claiming the responsibility to change the industry for the better.
Q: What do you love most about the Four Corners?
A: I have lived abroad for 6 years and I have travelled to over 31 countries. I have not yet seen a sunset more beautiful than here in the Southwest. It is not just the big sky and glowing clouds, it’s also the high desert mesas, the red earth, the snow tipped peaks, and the lure to explore.
