After working in the employee wellness systems business for several years, Karen Surdenik believed that many of the employers she worked with would have preferred an independent consultant for those services, rather than their health insurance provider or a healthcare provider.
It was a pretty good hunch. She and partners Don Cooper and Stephanie Thelan’s new
Cooper and Partners consulting firm can hardly keep up with the demand for their services.
“We can’t seem to build our systems fast enough,” Surdenik says. “Our business model is consulting and services and programs to assist the corporate community with their workplace wellness initiatives.”
Cooper and Partners offers four types of services: consulting, free monthly meetings for employers, conferences and challenge events, during which teams of employees from participating companies compete against each other in fun wellness events.
Just eight weeks after their launch, Cooper and Partners hosted a monthly employer meeting with 19 attendees from 15 different companies representing just under 30,000 employees.
“We know our reach its there,” says Surdenik. “We know we are beginning to have an impact.”
Cooper and Partners is located in an
East Lansing office that is just under 1,000 square feet. In addition to the three partners, a fourth employee will soon be hired to help assist with the wellness challenges. Surdenik says the firm’s goal is to change corporate cultures to be more geared toward employee wellness.
Cooper and Partner’s first conference will take place in September, and their first wellness challenge will also be in the fall.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.