Chapter 1: What life-changing event did Craig Scharton experience at 23?
One of the best things that ever happened to me, I would say, is that I got cancer when I was 23. I realized that we have one very precious life and I wanted to make sure and do good with the one I had and use it all up. And so I've been very fortunate to try to do things that had meaning. This life is an incredible gift and squandering gifts leads to a lot of unhappiness.
Welcome to Digital Voices, where healthcare and life science leaders explore the real work behind transformation. This podcast is about people, leadership, and the conversations that move healthcare forward. Now your host, Ed Marks.
Welcome to another edition of Digital Voices. Thanks for listening. We know you have a lot of different choices. So many great podcasts out there to listen and watch. And you chose us and we make it worth your while because we have amazing guests like Craig Sharton. Craig, welcome to Digital Voices. Hey, great to see you again, Ed. It's great seeing you. And I want to describe how we first met.
So it was really only recently. So I heard about all the great things that you were doing at Connect Labs Charlotte, which we're going to get into in a big way. So I reached out. I think we had a mutual friend brought us together. Yes, Sandeep, a mutual friend brought us together. Very thankful for him. And I was like, wow, I cannot believe that something like this is being built.
And so you were kind enough. I think we're like almost like on the first day of some of the parts where we could actually walk in without, you know, wearing protective gear and check out this amazing facility. I don't want to steal the thunder. It'll come. You'll share it in a few minutes here. Before we get into all that, Craig, I have to ask what songs are on your playlist?
Oh, my gosh. This time of year, I have my bizarre holiday track, which is the Hanukkah song by Adam Sandler. Love it. Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, and Merry Christmas with the Family by Robert Earl Keene. Those are the top three that come to mind, but they're all, as you can tell, have a humorous bent to them. Yeah.
Yeah, those are great. And I haven't heard of Robert Carle King's name in a while.
Yeah, I'm a big fan. Although that song is inappropriate, none of you should listen to it.
I saw him in concert a couple of times. It's a great concert. What about life message and mantra? Are there sort of words that guide how you live and how you operate?
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Chapter 2: What five ideals guide Craig's life and work?
But it also left 30 acres within the heart of the city that were single-story buildings, not a lot of investment in it, with great proximity to uptown. And so that's become the development site. So we do have access to have, we have two buildings now. We'll be building a residential building, a hotel, as you mentioned, and two more research buildings on this site.
Then we have more acreage across the street behind me where we'll be able to respond to what the market wants after we're done with these first two phases.
Yeah, it's pretty remarkable on so many different levels. That's what's cool thing and that's why it's so important to you personally as well and to your career.
And if people go on and look for Wexford Science and Technology, they can look up the Pearl. And they can look up Connect Labs as well. And we do have Connect Labs and other facilities throughout the country.
So not only are the early stage and startup companies on our floor connecting with each other, they have the ability to connect with early stage and startup companies in Phoenix and Sacramento and Baltimore, U City Square in Philadelphia and others. we're connecting on multiple different levels at once.
Yeah. Well, I love this one in particular, you know, cause the Pearl aspect and the advocate health and wake forest and yeah, Dr. Raju Shrestha. He was so grateful to be with us and give us a tour of the clinical side. Yeah. And it's, it is cool for those who haven't been, they should, we'll, we'll put the links that you just mentioned in the show notes.
So you can get kind of a virtual sense, but if you ever go, you should visit. It's, it's an amazing place. facility doing great things. And like, like you just described, Craig, and I walked through it. So I saw it like, yeah, you could have all your innovators. And they're right there. And they can talk to these 10,000 surgeons coming in.
And I saw that that training facility is like over the top unreal. And I all the other partners that you mentioned. One of them, there's a couple other partners that are there and they've committed to bringing their latest and greatest equipment. And so it really will be this sort of like a mecca for, you know, all things innovation and healthcare.
And to your point that's come through loud and clear a couple of times already is that it's going to be impactful for generations upon generations and save a lot of lives, improve the quality of care, improve patient experience, improve clinical experience. You can tell I'm pretty excited about it, Craig. I think I'm ready to come back.
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Chapter 3: How did Craig's cancer diagnosis influence his career path?
I really care about you know, the people that work with me and I want them to succeed in what they do. And I view my role as thinking about how I can help them be successful. And I really take a lot of joy as they move on in their careers and become successful. I feel that same way about the companies that are on our floor.
You know, my intrinsic value or reward, I should say, is really watching them grow and become successful and getting to share in that. So I think care is a big part of it. I actually care whether things work well or not. Usually I assume that if it's not working, it's my fault and I have to go back and think about it harder and consider find a creative solution to make things work.
So that's a big part of it. I think the idea of fun is undervalued. You know, I want people to walk in and have a sense of fun. So you got to see the artwork hanging on the walls and the mural that will be up. And, you know, we don't just put out Doritos and Diet Pepsi. We are, you know, going to the market and finding fresh fruits and vegetables and,
We're going to have smoothie days where we have a smoothie bar set up and trying to incorporate health on all these different levels, making sure the community feels welcome here. And we have events for the community. So it's not just all the students and faculty and C-level people at Atrium Advocate and the surgeons. It's also a place where the community can come through and
I want people to drive down the street and say, you should go in there sometime. There's some amazing things happening on cardiac and neurology and cancer and all these things. And I want them to share in the excitement that's happening here. So I do think fun has a role in all of that. Because I believe if things are fun, you can't keep people away. If it's not fun, you can't pay them to go. So
All these entrepreneurs are working long hours and putting a lot at risk. And if we can bring that sense of joy to them, I think we've made it a place worth being in.
Yeah, Craig, you've talked a lot about your five sort of key values, if you will, love, truth, beauty, wisdom, peace, and the different things that you've been speaking about, about care for others, a lot of empathy, a lot of compassion, a lot of interest, being purpose-driven, doing things with meaning. So this is completely off script. But where do you think that comes from?
Because people will listen to leaders like yourself or people like yourself and talk about things and that comes out. And then they often ask that question. And so I'm asking it for them. It's like, how did that Craig come to be?
What do you think? Well, I think I've always had kind of a sense of wonder about things. I think that cancer diagnosis, you know, really had a lot to do with it. Realizing that this life is an incredible gift and squandering gifts is, you know, it leads to a lot of unhappiness. So, you know, we all should, I mean... we're surrounded by riches where, I mean, there's just, everything is here.
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