Charles Barber, author of In the Blood, is a Writer in Residence at Wesleyan University, a Lecturer in Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, and the author of the critically acclaimed books Songs from the Black Chair: A Memoir of Mental Interiors (Univ. of Nebraska, 2005), Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation (Pantheon, 2008), and Citizen Outlaw: One Man’s Journey from Gangleader to Peacekeeper (Ecco, 2019). The title essay of his first book won a 2006 Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times and the Washington Post, among dozens of publications. He has been a guest on the Today Show, the Morning Show, CNN, BBC, and NPR’s Fresh Air. He was educated at Harvard and Columbia universities, and lives in Connecticut with his family.

Bart Gullong grew up in Old Saybrook and Wethersfield, Connecticut, attending local schools before graduating from Tabor Academy in Massachusetts. He earned a degree in English from Marietta College in Ohio, and later received a master’s degree in Counseling from Central Connecticut State University. In high school and college, he was a top-level rower and directly after college became a high school and college rowing coach, at Simsbury High School and then Connecticut College. He recruited future Olympians at Conn College, and in his second year as a coach, his crew finished second in the country. By age 25, he was a US Women’s crew national coach, and athletes he recruited formed a nucleus of the medal-winning 1976 Olympic team.

He changed careers in his late twenties to become an entrepreneur. Moving to Long Island, he variously worked for NASA as a consultant on the Space Shuttle, developed an early video game company, and co-invented and marketed a speedometer for rowing teams.

At age 50, he met his future business partner Frank Hursey, and Gullong’s career took on a new course, although his earlier experiences as an elite coach and inventor/entrepreneur fueled the next stage of his career. Working with Hursey, he brought to the attention of the military a miraculous blood clotting product, QuikClot, that Hursey had discovered two decades before. QuikClot was immediately adopted by all branches of the military but the Army and was credited with saving many lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now QuikClot (also known as Combat Gauze) is in all American military first aid kits, and is used by first responders worldwide. The small company that Gullong and Hursey created in 2002 out of a workshop recently sold for more than half a billion dollars.

Topics covered in this episode:

QuikClot Introduction
QuikClot User Surviving a Tragic Accident
Military Medicine Advancements in Battlefield Injury Treatment
Science and Innovation in Protecting Soldiers' Lives
Application in Civilian Settings
Natural Disasters
Safety and Efficacy of Zeolite
Introducing QuikClot to the Market
Reducing Mortality Rates
Emergency Kits and First Responder Gear
Perseverance and Grit
Achieving Success
Nobel Prize in Medicine
Contributions of Innovators
Controversies and Politics
Global Reach Humanitarian Mission

To learn more about Charles Barber and Bart Gullong and their work, head over to https://www.charlesbarberwriting.com/

After my conversation today, I am 100% sold on QuikClot. I hope that every person that listens to this episode goes to http://www.lindseyelmore.com/clot, to pick up two pieces of QuikClot gauze in a resealable pouch that fits easily into any trauma kit.

The QuikClot gauze has been used by hospitals, emergency services, military first responders, law enforcement, general public, and outdoorsmen. It fits perfectly into any first aid kit, any suture kit, any medical kit, or any survival kit. Grab a couple of them. Leave one in your car, one in your camping gear, and one in your emergency kit as well as one in your family's first aid kit. Use the QuikClot Advanced Clotting gauze to stop bleeding five times faster.

Mission 22 helps veterans, active duty, military, and those who are injured in training and could not deploy who are affected by mental health disorders. It aims to help prevent suicide in veterans and active duty military because 22 service men and women commit suicide every single day because of the stress and the trauma that they have been through in service to our country. Head to http://www.lindseyelmore.com/amare to save $10 off of your first order to help support your mental wellness, as well as provide mental wellness to our veterans.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Come check us out at www.lindseyelmore.com/podcast.