Starkey Hearing Technologies, which manufactures hearing aids, does not focus on profits and does not allocate a budget for sales and marketing. Instead, the company focuses on improving its products and services. According to founder William Austin, that is the secret of its success.

"We focus our energy on making tomorrow better than today," William Austin told NEWS.am Medicine.

For the same reason – to make tomorrow better than today – Dr. Austin founded Starkey Hearing Foundation in 1984, to provide hearing aids to people who cannot afford them. According to William Austin, he first wanted to be a missionary doctor, but then he understood that a foundation like this could help more people than a missionary doctor.

“We take from the people who can pay and help the people who can’t,” Dr. Austin said. “We’re doing this because we care. Because we respect life. This is the least we can do. We’ve had a good chance, and we have to give someone else a chance. If you don’t make an investment today, you won’t have a good tomorrow. You have to pay some price today for improvement in our world. There’s too much conflict in the world, there needs to be more understanding between people. We must do what we can to be a good neighbor, and a good friend, and help them, lift them up. I feel privileged to do this work.”

Starkey Hearing Foundation now operates around the world, and Armenia is the 107th country visited by its charity missions. The first visit to Armenia was organized in 2017, and around 1,800 deaf people received free hearing aids. This year, 1,200 people received the devices. The first visit was successful thanks to the partners they found in Armenia, that’s why the second visit followed, Mr. Austin said.  

“We needed someone in country to help us with internal logistics. We couldn’t do it without them. That’s what we were looking for to find in Armenia, and when we found the right people to work with, we were able to make great progress here. And now we are able to provide continuing care to the people of Armenia,” he said.

Dr. Austin also liked the people in Armenia. According to him, people here were friendly, caring, grateful, polite and patient, and that’s why working in Armenia was a pleasure for him and his colleagues.

“The people are so nice! That’s the big thing about Armenia that makes it like a beautiful vacation for us to work. There can be no beach as nice, no place in the world where I would rather work, because the people are so nice. They are so grateful, they are so polite as they are waiting patiently for help in the lines, everyone is nice. And they are always saying, “God bless you,” which makes us feel good,” Dr. Austin said.

Together with his employees and volunteers Dr. Austin visited many countries around the world, and due to some “cultural differences” some places were less friendly than the others. For example, in some of the countries in the Middle East the patients were not patient and always fought with each other in line over who’s going to be next.

“We don’t like that, because we are there to be nice to people, to care for people, we don’t want to have to break up fights all the time,” Dr. Austin said.