HTM On The Line with BRYANT HAWKINS SR.

Trailblazing Women in HTM: Insights from Amber Sportsman, April Lebo, Kim Rowland, Danielle McGeary, and Adrianna England

• Bryant Hawkins Sr. • Season 2 • Episode 11

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Ready to be inspired by trailblazing women in the Healthcare Technology Management (HTM) industry? Hear from Amber Sportsman, April Lebo, Kim Rowland, Danielle McGeary, and Adrianna England as they share their incredible journey of expanding the Women in Leadership (WIL) LinkedIn group, kicking off War Story Wednesdays, and orchestrating a highly successful networking event at the AAMI Exchange in Phoenix, Arizona. Discover how they’ve managed to rally 188 members across 19 states, and what it took to have around 70 women show up for an unforgettable happy hour. You'll leave with insights into the power of authenticity, mentorship, and collaboration in creating a vibrant, supportive community.

"We are immensely grateful to our sponsors—The College of Biomedical Equipment Technology, A.M. Bickford, PM Biomedical and Talent Exclusive—for their support in making this podcast possible. Their dedication to advancing the HTM industry is truly commendable. For more information about their contributions and services, please visit their websites:


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Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Welcome to HTM On the Line with Brian Hawkins Sr. In this episode, we're thrilled to reconnect with five extraordinary HTM women leaders Amber Sportsman, april Lebo, kim Rowland, danielle McGarry and Adriana England. Since January, they have significantly expanded the Women in Leadership LinkedIn group to 188 members across 19 states, launched War Story Wednesdays and organized their first networking event at Amy Exchange in Phoenix, arizona, this past June. We'll explore their journey, highlighting the power of authenticity, mentorship and collaboration in leadership, and how these elements have fostered a supportive and empowering community. We will celebrate their achievements and gain invaluable insights into creating positive change in the healthcare technology management industry. Let's get into this week's episode with Women in Leadership how you ladies doing.

Danielle McGeary:

Wonderful Great.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Let's start with introductions. Can everyone please share who we have on the line today?

Danielle McGeary:

I'm April Lebo, kim Rowland, danielle McGeary.

Adrianna England:

Adriana England.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Great, there they are. So it's still the same crew and we have Amber out there somewhere.

Amber Sportsman:

She's with us in spirit In spirit.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

All right, ladies, the last time you was on my show, let's do a quick without peeping. Do y'all know the date y'all was on my show last? Anyone knows?

Amber Sportsman:

was it back in February?

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

no, wow, I thought y'all would know at least a month. January yeah, any brownie points for the day.

Adrianna England:

January 24th, but I cheated. I looked under my excel sheet. I can't believe any brownie points for the day January 24th. But I cheated. I looked under my excel sheet.

Danielle McGeary:

I can't believe it's been that long actually it was January.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Yeah, that was it. You're right, she's cheating, I'm cheating. So it popped in my head. I said, man, I just wanted to do like a six month rendezvous with you guys because y'all been all over the circuit. Rendezvous with you guys, because y'all have been all over the circuit, everybody's been gravitating to y'all, talking to y'all. So I was jealous, I wanted to bring y'all back and get with you guys and just to see how things have been going. So let's just maybe reflect right now on the past almost six months. Just maybe reflect right now on the past almost six months. Can one of you or two share some significant achievements?

Adrianna England:

You could say that the women in leadership has reached in the past six months, you guys this is Adrian.

Adrianna England:

Oh no, go ahead, adriana. Ok, I just want to give a quick statistic, because I did look it up, and then I'll let April jump in, because she has led a lot of good things in the last six months. But since we've spoken to you, brian, we have currently 188 Will members in our LinkedIn group, which is huge. So we are very, very close to hitting 200 members Across the US. We are covering 19 different states and with April's War Story Wednesdays, we put out 20 war stories highlighting some of the industry experts.

April Lebo:

So I just I kind of want to share those statistics with you, that's, you know what we've done statistically over the last six months Awesome kind of skyrocketed in terms of people knowing and understanding what Will is about, which we didn't have in the beginning. No one really understood what we were doing or what our mission was, and now I feel like people are coming up to us and asking about the society and how they can become a member. And then just again, other people asking us to be on their podcast. Being able to do the interview at Amy with Danielle and Robert was incredible to be able to have that exposure and get the word out. And then having our first networking event at Amy and the turnout that we had and the amount of women that showed up it was just absolutely unbelievable. So again, the exposure, the amount of people that now know about us and are happy to help spread the word, has just been extraordinary from where we were in January.

Kim Rowland:

I agree, I think, having the avenues that we've had with Bryant and with Danielle I was talking to Bryant and Adriana. You took all of my statistics that I wrote down too, but Bryant and I were talking the other day about just the overall numbers of biomeds in this space male, female, and the number of people that we have on the WIL group, in our private group, and it equates to around 1% of total biomeds, which is a huge success. I think that's awesome.

Danielle McGeary:

I was blown away by the amount of people that showed up to the Women in Leadership Happy Hour at the Amy Exchange. I mean we had probably 70 people there. We have a beautiful group picture of all the ladies that showed up and it was just such an unbelievable event um to meet. I mean I it was so nice meeting new people, connecting with um people we already knew, and just really seeing the excitement around this, this group wow, 70, that's that.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

I thought that picture. That was amazing. Now, if you had 70 at the event and you had 188 total, were there any new ladies at the Happy Hour in Amy, or was that all current members?

Danielle McGeary:

I think it's hard to know. I mean, some folks did ask about the LinkedIn groups. I would say those are definitely new people that were not part of our LinkedIn group. Those are definitely new people that were not part of our LinkedIn group. As I was walking around too, I was telling people about the event. We did have an RSVP form within the Women in Leadership LinkedIn group, but I think it just spread, People told their friends and it just seemed to continue to grow. The excitement throughout the event just continued to grow. And having April and Kim on our show on live at AB exchange you know we also plugged it there as well. So I'm sure there are many avenues, like even being at the show, that people were able to find out about the event.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Well, I know I sent one lady to you guys.

Danielle McGeary:

Well, thank you.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Okay, Now we mentioned that you guys accomplished some milestones. Now did y'all set any specific goals since January and have you achieved those goals or are you still progressing toward them?

Kim Rowland:

As organically as this has been formed. It's sort of progressed that way as well. I think that trying to find, as we talked about before, trying to find the gaps in what we're needing to bridge, has really opened up during these conversations. So getting to talk to these ladies and getting to develop resources and the people that are supporting and offering resources to this group has been overwhelming and offering resources to this group has been overwhelming, I know.

April Lebo:

I think for all of us in the beginning, the goals were just you know, how do we get the word out?

April Lebo:

How do we, you know, get more women to want to be a part of this?

April Lebo:

And I feel like we've done a good job achieving some of those goals, doing the different podcasts, doing different interviews I know Danielle and I did an interview with a few people from Trimedics talking about their women-led initiatives so little goals like that that we had set in the beginning I feel like we've accomplished.

April Lebo:

And now, as we have gotten bigger and this has expanded, we've had opportunities to come together as a board to brainstorm and come up with new goals. And I think, especially at the exchange, having different conversations with different people and again for me, that I never in a million years would have thought we would have been able to have conversations with some of these people has really set things in motion for new, bigger goals. Now we haven't achieved them quite yet, but we've got them on our inspiration board and they're definitely in the works. So, as time continues, more goals come about, especially how we can bring value to the women that are a part of the group and value to the industry and definitely excited to see where we're going to be in the next six months.

Danielle McGeary:

And I think just the outpouring of support from the greater community around this initiative has really helped to make it grow organically as well. I think, throwing it out there initially, and then just all these different initiatives that we've worked on together being on different podcasts, the meeting with Trimedics and I think it's huge because Trimedics also wants to promote that video that we created so now their audience is seeing it and then more people will see it. And same thing with you, brian. I think we can attribute a lot of the success and the growth to you as well, because people watch your show and they hear about it and they want to be part of it, and I think it's just so, so nice to really see everyone coming together to really support this initiative.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Now, I know you mentioned that you have a lot of support and it's women in leadership, but how have the male colleagues been supporting you guys in this mission in these last six months and your initiatives?

Danielle McGeary:

Well, from an Amy perspective, I can tell you. When I first talked to my boss, robert Burroughs, about this, who's our chief learning and development officer, and I told him about the group and what we wanted to achieve, he like smiled and said we need to lean in and lean in more and lean in as much as you can. You know Amy's here to support this and you know that's from a male boss.

Kim Rowland:

Well, after you posted the link, danielle, about our specific, you know WIL interview about Amy. I don't know if you guys saw the comment from Monty but I know that CBET has been a big supporter and specifically in this question around the male support roles and how we're all making progress and how much the females on his team has brought value to the Seabed organization. Yeah, monty is so supportive.

Danielle McGeary:

He's a great guy.

April Lebo:

Absolutely To the point where he even talked to us about possibly a scholarship, like a women in leadership scholarship for one of the female students. So there has been I can't tell you how many people that I've seen while I've been out, especially at the shows the males that have come up and just said how much they commend what we're doing and really truly believe in this networking and in the society. So I do. I feel like the support that we've gotten from so many of the men in the industry has just been fantastic.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

I can recall one guy had y'all on his show and y'all had all y'all beautiful blue dresses and shoots and yes there you go. That's my guy. He's a good guy. Tell me about that. How was that experience?

April Lebo:

He rolled out the red carpet, that fella. He was fantastic. So you know, getting to sit down in this beautiful house with all of us together and some mimosas and some food and he had little gift bags for us and getting to meet the rest of his family. Danny really put on a fantastic show and it was so comfortable and having all of us there and getting to wear our power blue colors for the women in leadership. I was, I felt like a movie star. To be honest with you, bryant.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Can you give like a collaboration that you may have had that gave a positive impact toward the group's progress moving forward?

April Lebo:

I'm going to jump in and say the collaboration with Amy. You know Danielle has been instrumental and just through her affiliation and the support that we've gotten from Amy we've been able to do that live interview. They gave us access to be able to have our first networking. They helped us promote it. They've helped with multiple different interviews, giving us access to the virtual studio, doing all of the editing. You know just have been so welcoming in offering any of the resources that we might possibly ever need that I don't think we would be where we are right now without that. So the collaboration and just what we've been able to do with Amy, I think has just been, like I said, been instrumental. So that's one of the collaborations I feel like has really propelled us to where we are right now.

Danielle McGeary:

Well, thank you, and it's been a professional honor to work with you as well. We are just honored to be able to do it.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Do y'all have any skills or I guess I should say knowledge areas that the group is focusing on? As far as when you talk with individuals in your society, are there any specific knowledge or skill you would like to bring the light to help?

Amber Sportsman:

like to bring the light to help. I think I can pop in. You know, one of the things that we discussed in our last board meeting was how strong the word mentorship is and setting up a mentorship program. We discussed the fact that some of us are in administration, some are in sales, some are in HTM and being able to pair those women that are looking for some training or just advice from someone that may be more experienced. I would think that would be one of the things that we've been talking about doing. Ladies, would you agree?

April Lebo:

Absolutely.

Kim Rowland:

Yeah, I think that we've got a great opportunity to now and I'm going to go ahead and reflect back about the Amy Exchange. That was incredible and connecting everybody together in Provo Medical doing the sponsorship. But we don't always have that opportunity to find sponsors and find meeting spaces. You know a lot of them are busy, but we came up with an idea about connecting everybody and it's going to be twofold, so we'll be able to shake hands, introduce people around, make them more comfortable with the trade show experience, new people getting into the space, make them more comfortable with the trade show experience, new people getting into the space, but also supporting the keynote speaker and the luncheons. That's a time that we can all participate. We can all learn a lot.

Kim Rowland:

You know there's a lot of thought and effort that's put into the keynote speaker and then we, as women in leadership, can go and reserve a table, and that's a table that people are welcome to join and to connect. And there was also an email that went out I mean a post, rather that on LinkedIn that Adriana shared that we will reach out to us via text, via messaging. If you're coming to a show you're not familiar, any of the board members are happy to help. Most of us are at. At least one or two of us are at the shows and members are happy to help. Most of us are at. At least one or two of us are at the shows and we're happy to help introduce people around.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

And there's so many ways you can go with this mentor program.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Just thinking and I talked to so many people and I don't know, kim, you might have talked about this, but at the shows where maybe a mentor can be like a tour guide for someone that might be their first time, because you can tell the first timers at any trade show, you just can look at them like the first day of school and I just think that would. I could tell you it works. I tried it with a guy in the expo. He was walking by himself. I just walked up to him, walked him around, introduced him to some exhibitors, some people in the industry, and I looked up like a day later and he was walking around with a new guy. So I don't know if that might be part of it where they take him. Maybe get with some new person and show him around, show him really what the show is about, because some just don't know exactly what to get out of a trade show. They just go to the show, but you can probably show them the benefits of the trade show.

Adrianna England:

Just throwing one out there. Hey, brian, this is Adri. At our last board member meeting last week, we actually discussed just that and we actually have it in the works an ambassador program. So right now we have four ladies that we've internally nominated to kind of cover, you know, the US. So that's something that we're definitely doing. We're going to start promoting now, every month, who's going to be at the shows so that we can link up and we can have, you know, direct ambassadors out of our women in leadership group.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

I mean you ladies, what you're doing I don't know if y'all are looking at it from the inside y'all can't really see the gravitation to what y'all doing is amazing, but it's something that's I guess it's a one-on-one. I've never seen it in our industry before. So I think what y'all doing is it needs to be commended, and you guys are creating something that's probably going to be a legacy as far as this industry goes, moving forward, because y'all are one of one and it's just growing and growing, and I think y'all sometimes need to sit back and just smell your roses and appreciate what's going on. I hope y'all doing that. You know, don't just keep your head down all the time. Lift it up every now and then and breathe and enjoy the hard work y'all putting in, because I'm telling you from what I see, it's awesome. I mean, I'm proud of all of you guys.

Danielle McGeary:

Thank you. We couldn't do it without support from people like you too, brian, and I hope you always take a step back and look at all that you've done too. I know this is a women in leadership interview, but you are just as important to the HTM community as well. You're just a breath of fresh air. You use your platform so eloquently to really bring forward positive messaging and really just uplift the community as a whole. So you know you have a huge part in all of this as well.

Amber Sportsman:

Absolutely. And to add to that, danielle Bryant, you've been. You've been, I would dare to say, our biggest supporter from the very beginning. So a lot of our success is due to the support that you've shown, publicly and privately.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

So thank you for that All right, good, all right, now leave me out of this. Guys, come on, I see y'all show. Send me, y'all show, send me a text message. No, I'm joking, but okay, now I'm gonna ask this question and, if you had to, I know you know how you go on the interviews and they, they always ask where do you see yourself in five years? Where do you see women in leadership in one year? I mean, y'all did so much in six months, I can't even go five years. I mean, where do y'all see yourself if we was to come back this time?

Kim Rowland:

next year this day, where do you think y'all would be? I think you're going to get five different answers from this. I think that we all have a lot of different ideas of the way this is going to progress, and I think that's the value of this diversity of the people sitting on this board. We have to focus on the female versus, you know, the male population, the percentage of what we've got in this industry, which is the whole reason why we created this group. But that's what I would like to see. I would like us to talk about this on a human level rather than by a gender.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Talk about this on a human level rather than by gender. How do you join WIL? I guess I should have mentioned that. How can someone join your group? Could you say it is private on LinkedIn, but if someone is listening and they want to come join Women in Leadership Society, what should they do?

Amber Sportsman:

reach out to any one of the board members. Reach out to you. Reach out to anyone you know that's in will already. It's so simple.

Danielle McGeary:

And they can request to join our group as well on LinkedIn.

Adrianna England:

One thing that makes me excited right is that you know who our members are, so that itself should say words that I can't even put out right now the fact that you know who our members are. Like April said, you can find us on LinkedIn, but we also are branding our personal photos, so you'll see that will image across our face as well, so click on any of those we're constantly promoting.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

What keeps you motivated to do this? Is it just that, trying to? What keeps you motivated? I don't want to put answers in anyone's mouth. What motivates you? Say a name, okay.

Adrianna England:

I'm going to be honest, Kim Rowland. She keeps us motivated. So what we're doing is we're trying to bring the personal side into the will group as well. So every weekend, Kim is like here, I am hiking, and we put a post out and trying to learn each other personally. And April threw a photo out there and we're like you do what? So we are learning so much about the ladies that we're interacting with. So not only at the trade show, not only business-wise, but personally, we are learning each other's grandkids and dogs and hobbies and it's just refreshing and to me, that's what motivates me to be part of this group.

Amber Sportsman:

I love that. You said that, adri, and me this is Amber being the old lady in the group these girls Technology challenged. I am not a big poster. I like it. It's so many posts and I'll love posts, but putting my own stuff out there I'm like how do I have to get my kids? How do I do this? So forgive me all for my my ignorance, but I love seeing. I love seeing the content and, yes, like you said, adrienne, I love seeing Kim's hiking and the fact that April posted about collecting the old bottles and that opened a conversation with April and me that my husband used to work for the water company and dig up these old bottles. I had no idea. So, yeah, I love the personal side of it too, just like you said, adrienne. So thanks for bringing that up.

Danielle McGeary:

And I think the goal is really just to leave the field a little bit better than we found it. At the end of the day, I think we've all been in the position of being the sole female and, I think, really connecting with people who maybe may not have a strong network. I think it's so important that we be that you know we're stronger together and I think that's really what we're seeing is the power in the numbers and bringing people together and sharing experiences and letting people know that they're not alone and that you know these situations aren't mutually exclusive, even though people may feel that they are. You know, and I think when, when we bring people together, you know, it really helps, and I think when we bring people together, it really helps, because I think the most important thing is we want to retain the women in the field too. We don't want them leaving and going to other industries. We've done so much work to promote the field and we were only 10% female when we did a survey in 2021. And we're going to redo it next year, in 2025. And hopefully we'll see a spike in those numbers. But we don't want it to start going in the other direction, and I think that can sometimes happen when people feel isolated and don't have a strong network.

Danielle McGeary:

So I think, bringing everyone together, letting people know that there's a network here, and to even go back to the mentoring comment, I think a lot of that happens organically. People come to these network events, find someone that they really connect with and you build relationships and they become your mentor. So I think there's just so much good in what's going on beyond probably what any of us even realize. I think it's hard to really measure. You can't always measure the success, because we could go to an event and talk to someone and never know the impact of that conversation. But we know through what we're doing, that we're making change and we're here to you know. Like I said, just leave the field a little bit better than we found it.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

I'm going to tell you one way. You know you're making a difference. They walk three blocks in that hot heat in Phoenix to come to your happy hour. So trust me, because it was hot and never, you know, and you can look at the smiles on their faces. I mean I don't think I saw one person not smiling in the picture. I mean that is a testament to what you guys are doing. You guys are really.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

You might not want to say it or think it, but you guys are pioneers right now and what y'all doing is y'all are true pioneers in this industry. Y'all are setting a mark that can't get wiped away, moving forward. I mean, it's going to be here and that's something that a lot of folks can't say and y'all too humble to say it. So I say this for you and I just think y'all legacy is it's already set to me personally y'all just building on it, and I'm think y'all legacy is it's already set to me personally Y'all just building on it and I'm just excited to see what's next from it. But I wanted to keep it at 30 minutes, but we just went over, of course. But I just want you guys at the end, each one of you guys to say something that can spread, if you had to. If you was able to tell someone about WIL and what it means to you personally, I want you to share that. We'll start with. I'll say the name, so we don't have, we'll start with you Adrienne.

Adrianna England:

Alphabetical order we have a lot of A's in our group.

Kim Rowland:

Brian, just so you know.

Adrianna England:

OK, there you go. So for me again, this group has brought more than just the business side of it the daily inspirationals, having somebody to collab with at the trade shows If I'm having a hard day or a personal situation that's work related. I jump on the line with one of these ladies in our group. Work related, I jump on the line with one of these ladies in our group. Brian, I'm going to be honest. I've called you a couple of times. You've just opened that door of wisdom and kindness and for me, joining the will group has done wonders for me, mentally, physically, personally and professionally.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Right, let's go with you now. Amber, right, let's go with you now um amber.

Amber Sportsman:

Well, obviously I feel the exact same way that adri feels. I have such a sense of peace within myself with when I talk with these ladies. I I want the whole group to feel that way. I want all of us at some point to be able to perhaps get together and have these discussions and just get to know one another. We've always known one another on a professional level and to some degree, on a personal level. Degree on a personal level, but just the sense of empowerment that I feel. I've always kind of felt alone in my role as a leader in my company, so it's just given me such a sense of sisterhood. So I want the other ladies in our group to feel that same level of peace that I feel. Yeah, that would be that.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Well said, well said, danielle.

Danielle McGeary:

I love HTM and I think most people know that I couldn't imagine doing anything else with my career. It has just been so rewarding and I want others to feel that same spark. At the end of the day, we are the path to the patient, no matter what our role is whether you're selling parts, whether you're working in-house, whether you're fixing the equipment and you know, if we build strong connections in this field and retain folks in the field, we provide better patient care, because that's what we're here for. Hospitals can't function without equipment and at the end of the day, it all goes back to the patient and by building strong bonds, retaining women in the field, keeping, building them up and letting and like what all of my colleagues in this group have said, you know it ties back to the patient and I think this group does, like I said, does way more than we ever imagined, because the stronger HTM professionals and leaders we have, the better patient care, the safer the equipment is, because hospitals can't function without every single one of us.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

And we'll finish it off with Kim.

Kim Rowland:

And how do you follow that? That sums it up perfectly and I think the connectivity with like-minded people being around this group I don't take for granted. I love that we get to have conversations about paying it forward and what brought us to this space and all the stories that we're collecting at the War Story Wednesdays and what brought us to this space and all the stories that we're collecting at the War Story Wednesdays. But Danielle said it earlier and I think it's the most beautiful thing that I heard in this whole conversation is we all have each other and not everybody has that same network, and we get to hopefully extend the invitation and if somebody feels that they want to participate, they're welcome to to join us and to have these conversations and know that they've got a place at our table.

Bryant Hawkins Sr.:

Amber, april, adri, kim and Danielle I thank you all once again for coming of HTM on the Line. It's clear that Amber Sportsman, april Levo, kim Rowland, danielle McGarry and Adriana England have made remarkable strides in fostering women's leadership within the healthcare technology management industry. Their journey underscores the power of authenticity, mentorship and collaboration in building a supportive and empowering community. By expanding the WIL LinkedIn group, launching impactful initiatives and organizing successful networking events, they have set a powerful example for current and future women leaders. Powerful example for current and future women leaders. Thank you for joining us and we hope their stories have inspired you to embrace authenticity, seek mentorship and cultivate strong networks in your own leadership journey. Till next time, y'all be safe out there.

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