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In the 1930s Charles Knapp traveled throughout Muskegon County in western Michigan, asking passersby where he might find people in the area who were hard of hearing. As patient recruitment goes, it was about as challenging a strategy as you could find.
"The family initially got into this business as a means to help my grandmother - she was hard of hearing," recalls Herbert Knapp.
After 75 years in the industry, the Knapp family name is synonymous with hearing aid dispensing in the Great Lakes State. Herbert and his daughter, Melissa Knapp-Jensen, are the third and fourth generations of Knapps to be involved in the family business of helping people overcome hearing deficiencies. (Click here to view a Knapp family photo gallery!)
Charles Knapp and his son, Clarence G. Knapp, started their grassroots efforts in 1938 before opening the first family business in 1942. Herbert Knapp, then just a teenager, worked with his dad and grandfather, filling orders for hearing aids that were attached via a battery pack to a user's leg, with a wire that attached a receiver to the breast pocket. "In those days we had half of Michigan as customers," he said.
Eight years later he completed a six-week course at the University of Illinois in Champaign. The start of the association currently known as the International Hearing Society (IHS) followed just a year later, with Knapp helping to lead the way. (In 2006 he was recognized as a charter member of IHS with board certification.)
During the 1960s, the family business was on the cutting edge of technological advances using body heat to operate hearing aids. To this day the Knapps own one of the few businesses in Michigan that can claim the ability to create its own products, thanks to a license by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to create computer chips for assistive hearing devices.
When Knapp-Jensen joined the business, she represented the fourth generation of the family to enter the dispensing field.
The local Better Business Bureau recognized the family practice with its Best Community Service Award in 1991. Two years later Knapp obtained a patent for a solar-paneled rechargeable hearing aid.
Approaching retirement, he sold the family business in 1999. While it marked the end of an era in the western Michigan hearing business, the Knapp family story was still being written by Knapp-Jensen through her involvement in the manufacturing and marketing aspects of the dispensing field.
Part of Knapp's decision to sell the business was based on the fact that his daughter had moved to Florida to work for a hearing aid manufacturer. After 10 years in the Sunshine State, Knapp-Jensen returned home to Michigan and worked for a dispensing practice for three years, even working alongside her father, who just wasn't cut out for full-fledged retirement.
She then accepted her current position as director of Community Outreach at Great Lakes Hearing (GLH) in Grand Rapids. Owners Gordon and Nancy Faasse have been in the business for over 40 years, Knapp-Jensen said. "My father knows and respects both of them. Part of the reason I decided to work for the Faasses is they have the same integrity, honesty and beliefs my father holds."
Today, GLH (http://www.greatlakeshearing.com/) is enjoying a booming business, which she attributes to a number of factors, including reputation, word of mouth, Web-based advertising, and what she calls "the personal touch."
"We participate in many volunteer events in and around the community," said Knapp-Jensen. "We sent out mailers to all of my father's former patients, letting them know that I am now with GLH. We attend health expos, put on seminars at local retirement communities, and spend many hours annually volunteering at those communities."
"My dad still goes with me to retirement homes and answers questions after my seminars," she said. "He owns a traveling hearing aid museum that he brings along. It goes over really well with the seniors."
GLH no longer advertises in the local newspaper due to diminishing circulation, she noted. "Instead we advertise on over 40 websites, as well as our local Yellow Pages and the websites connected to them."
The practice also sends holiday and birthday cards to patients with personal letters, mails out a monthly newsletter, and uses mailers to promote its two specials a year.
Knapp-Jensen cited the commitment of GLH to the hearing industry as a whole and the senior population in particular. She plans to further her own involvement in the field by taking her dealer's license test this spring.
Also continuing the Knapp family tradition in the hearing industry are her father, who has renewed his license for another two years, and her daughter, who recently earned a degree in early childhood education with an emphasis on teaching children who are hearing impaired. Even after four generations, the Knapp family story in the Michigan hearing industry lives on.
Rob Senior is on staff at ADVANCE.
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