New CEO diagnoses a busy future for ClearPath

SYRACUSE — The new CEO of ClearPath Diagnostics says he joined a company that’s a specimen of growth.

“We’ve had some real encouraging signs,” says Jack Finn, who started as ClearPath’s chief executive on Nov. 1. “We’ve added five salespeople in the last two or three months. In the last two months and even more so this month, we’re seeing a substantial increase in volume, especially in the cytology pap-smear area.”

Finn expects to keep the independent tissue and cytopathology practice on that upward trajectory. The laboratory, which is on pace to finish 2012 with $10 million in revenue, could generate $15 million or $16 million in revenue next year, he says. Doing so would amount to a doubling of revenue since 2011, when the business posted revenue of $8 million.

Sources of growth will include new testing techniques that allow ClearPath to boost its business with existing customers, according to Finn. The firm also expects to add upstate New York hospitals as clients and expand the company’s client base in existing territories in Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York City, and Northern Pennsylvania, as well as move into New Jersey.

The laboratory will initially target its primary service area, which extends about a hundred miles from Syracuse. Geographic expansion will come if it is successful growing in that service area, Finn says.

“There are some tests and pathology procedures that are difficult for smaller hospitals to bring in-house,” he says. “We believe we can do them here and return them back to pathologists within a hundred miles the next day.”

Finn believes ClearPath holds an advantage delivering next-day results. It has an existing currier network that will allow it to easily add hospital clients, he says. That’s a leg up over other laboratories, which rely on slower shipping companies to deliver samples, he continues.

Finn’s background

Boosting business with hospitals comes naturally to Finn. Before joining ClearPath, he spent 25 years at Centrex Clinical Laboratories, Inc. in New Hartford, which operated both hospital-based laboratories and outpatient services.

Finn was president and CEO of Centrex. He left a few years after the company was acquired by North Carolina–based Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings (NYSE: LH), known as LabCorp, in 2009.

“I agreed to stay on for a couple of years during the transition to allow the company to transition to the new owners,” Finn says. “After the transition, they didn’t need a CEO as much as they did when it was an independent laboratory.”

Centrex was a larger organization than ClearPath. It posted $45 million in annual revenue when it was sold and had grown to $48 million by the time Finn left, he says. At its peak it had about 450 employees.

ClearPath, on the other hand, has 57 employees after increasing its workforce by 15 people in 2012.

Still, Finn doesn’t anticipate having too much difficulty shifting to a smaller company.

“I was there at Centrex 25 years ago,” he says. “I’ve been through this particular part of the growth cycle, the $10 million to $12 million that we’re at now. It’s just a matter of rolling it back a little bit to where I was maybe 10 or 15 years ago.”

ClearPath is headquartered in 14,000 square feet in suite 305 at 600 E. Genesee St. in Syracuse. The business is owned by Dr. Michael Mazur, Dr. Mike Jozefczyk, and Dr. Ken Strumpf, as well as Chicago–based Shore Capital Partners, LLC.

The laboratory will continue to add employees, according to Finn.

“One of the areas we’re looking to expand our services is supporting dermatologists and skin-related tissues,” he says. “We’re currently recruiting for a specialist in that area.”

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com