Cynthia Stamper Graff thinks of her Lindora Medical Clinics Inc. as a “41-year-old startup.”
Lindora runs medical weight-loss clinics, sells diet products and offers online medical weight-loss programs.
That mindset helps in a crowded weight-loss field, said Graff, the company’s executive board chairman.
“For us to continue to be a viable business, we had to continue to think like a startup,” she said.
Costa Mesa-based Lindora was one of five companies honored at the Business Journal’s annual Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards luncheon, held March 21 at the Hyatt Regency Irvine (see related stories, pages 1, 5, 6 and 8).
2nd Generation
Graff is the second generation of her family to helm Lindora. Her father, primary-care physician Marshall Stamper, started Lindora’s medical weight loss clinics in 1971 with a single clinic in Newport Beach. Stamper, whose mother died from weight-loss-related complications, had the premise that if people lost weight, they could prevent or cure certain ailments and conditions.
Graff told the Business Journal in 2009 her father had been called a quack, but being overweight has become an accepted factor in diabetes, heart disease and other conditions. Graff was in the real estate business and earned a law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School of York University in Toronto before coming to Lindora, which she joined in 1988.
“My father had built a very nice medical practice of the specialty of weight management and obesity medicine,” Graff said.
Graff accepted a position as general manager of Lindora upon her return to Southern California. She then was promoted to president, becoming chief executive in 1991.
She said her initial role centered on building upon her father’s weight-loss practice and making it more accessible, including opening additional clinics. Lindora later added nutritional snacks.
“I like convenience myself as a consumer, (but) my father had told me when I made these suggestions before I ever joined the company, that he was not a 7-Eleven, he was a physician,” Graff recalled. “I saw my role as just building upon his platform, making it more accessible and rounding out the services and product offerings.”
Today, Lindora has 35 clinics, primarily in Southern California and estimated annual revenue of $50 million. It has licensed clinics in Saudi Arabia and its Lean for Life weight loss program to Sutter Health clinics in Sacramento.
Partnership
It has a partnership with Camp Hill, Pa.-based drugstore chain Rite Aid Corp. that includes seven clinics inside various Rite Aid stores. Lindora also sells its high-protein snack bars, shakes and its flagship diet kit in 430 Rite Aid stores.
Rite Aid fulfilled the company’s aim of partnering with a high foot-traffic retailer for in-store clinics, Graff said. Lindora also markets a Rite Weight Plan—an online weight-management regimen—to the drugstore chain’s customers.
Lindora has 275 workers, and Graff said she was “blessed” to have a group of long-term employees. She said the average employment span for company workers is eight years, “which is very high in healthcare.”
Lindora has faced some challenges, including economic ups and downs. And in the late 1990s, Graff said Lindora was affected by the controversy over the “fen-phen” weight loss drug cocktail, which eventually was yanked from the market after heart problems and deaths.
Major Hit
“We didn’t think that was a very good thing for our patients,” she said. “So we took a major hit because we didn’t think it was the ethical thing for us to do.”
One of Lindora’s latest partnerships involves working with the Truckload Carriers Association, an Alexandria, Va.-based trade group. Lindora has devised the Trucking Weight Loss Showdown, which involves 11 trucking fleets in the U.S. and Canada whose drivers are working to lose weight. The drivers can win fleet prizes and cash prizes for losing weight.
“I’m just very proud of the work we’re doing with the truckers,” Graff said.
Some 85% of truck drivers are overweight, she said.
