Sandwich Appeal

Chuck Kienzel is familiar with caretaking. Frequent trips across the state to take care of his aging mother-in-law with Alzheimer's took an emotional toll. It also motivated Kienzel to start on a new company that emerged him from retirement.

After selling security systems in Columbus, Ohio, for decades, Kienzel moved to Florida in 1987 to start his own company. He sold that firm in 2002 to retire, but he decided two years ago to go back to work to create Bradenton-based Nurse Alert. “I would only do it if I could find a better way, and I did,” Kienzel says.

People may be familiar with personal emergency response systems (PERS), from the famed “I've fallen and I can't get up” commercials. When there is an emergency, a person with the device pushes a button and gets connected with a call center that dispatches emergency personnel or contacts a “key person” in his or her file.