{"id":69885,"date":"2013-11-07T11:55:52","date_gmt":"2013-11-07T16:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=69885"},"modified":"2017-02-23T13:14:20","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T18:14:20","slug":"press-herald-ben-shaw-00-ceo-vets-first-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2013\/11\/07\/press-herald-ben-shaw-00-ceo-vets-first-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Press Herald Q&#038;A with Vets First Choice CEO Ben Shaw &#8217;00 about a &#8216;transformative time&#8217; in veterinary medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Portland Press Herald<\/em>\u00a0staff writer Edward Murphy interviews Ben Shaw &#8217;00, CEO of Vets First Choice, an online business that partners with veterinarians to provide pet medicines and supplies to owners.<\/p>\n<p>The Portland, Maine-based company has signed up more than 10,000 veterinarians so far, Murphy reports, and was recently named the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.inc.com\/inc5000\/list\/2013\">24th fastest-growing company<\/a> in the U.S. by <em>Inc Magazine<\/em> with three-year growth of 8,585 percent and annual revenues of $14.6 million.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_69896\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/11\/ben-shaw-portland_Welcome_Event_092.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-69896\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-69896\" alt=\"Ben Shaw '00, CEO of Vets First Choice, speaks with guests at a Welcome Event for President Clayton Spencer at the Portland Museum of Art on May 8, 2013. (Mike Bradley\/Bates College)\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/11\/ben-shaw-portland_Welcome_Event_092-300x200.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/11\/ben-shaw-portland_Welcome_Event_092-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/11\/ben-shaw-portland_Welcome_Event_092-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/11\/ben-shaw-portland_Welcome_Event_092.jpg 1050w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-69896\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ben Shaw &#8217;00, CEO of Vets First Choice, speaks with guests at a Welcome Event for President Clayton Spencer at the Portland Museum of Art on May 8, 2013. (Mike Bradley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In simple terms, Vets First Choice enters the picture when a pet owner needs a medication.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Vets are having to stock all these medications in the event someone might walk in the door and need it,&#8221; Shaw says. &#8220;It&#8217;s inefficient to have so many medications on hand for a relatively small customer base.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Instead, a pet owner can order medication from Vets First Choice.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s really a transformative time in veterinary medicine, and veterinarians are fascinating and terrific customers,&#8221; Shaw says.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Increasingly, veterinarians are ending the inventorying of medicines in their practices. The medicines ship from our warehouse to the client, and the vet no longer has to be burdened with [carrying] a large amount of product. We have a lot of practices where we manage probably 80 percent-plus of their inventory.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pressherald.com\/business\/ceo-builds-business-that-helps-vets-treat-pets_2013-08-29.html?pagenum=full\">View story from the Aug. 29, 2013, <em>Portland Press Herald<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shaw&#8217;s business partners with veterinarians to set up online stores offering animal medicines and supplies directly to owners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":69896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[11009],"tags":[11051,1588],"class_list":["post-69885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-college","tag-bates-in-the-news","tag-ben-shaw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69885"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96827,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69885\/revisions\/96827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}