Meet Lisa Crites

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lisa Crites. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Lisa, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
I believe resilience is a learned behavior. It comes with time, and lots of failures. I’m 56 now, so I’ve had many setbacks, both personally, and professionally, so resilience is something you need to quickly learn, or you will fall behind from the initial goal and mission. To me, giving up is easy, continuing forward is often quite difficult and where resilience is required.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

A Health/Medical Journalist, The SHOWER SHIRT® Co’s Patented Inventor, Guest Speaker, News Columnist

Lisa F. Crites is the award-winning inventor of The SHOWER SHIRT®, the first and only patented (US Patent No. 8,516,613), water-resistant garment to protect chest surgery patients while showering. Her patented invention, awarded for ‘design’ and ‘method of use,’ was created following her breast cancer diagnosis and bi-lateral mastectomy surgery. Reduced to showering in a plastic trash bag to keep her surgical drain sites dry (to decrease the chances of a water-borne illness), she was frustrated by the thought of future mastectomy patients being required to do the same; subsequently, she designed, engineered, and now distributes The SHOWER SHIRT® to post-mastectomy and general chest surgery patients all over the world. A Class 1 Medical Device, the garment is available at more than 1,000 mastectomy boutiques nationwide, and a myriad of domestic and international e-commerce sites such as AMAZON, Walmart, and Pink Lotus. The product is exported to patients in Canada, England, Ireland, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Austria, Dubai, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, India, Turkey, South Africa, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and the Seychelles.

Lisa was a 2015 InnovateHER winner for her work and innovation in creating The SHOWER SHIRT®, an initiative to award inventors who create products to enrich the lives of women. The National InnovateHER series, sponsored by the SBA, Washington Post, and Microsoft, led her to travel as a guest of the US State Department to present at WE-APEC in Singapore. Lisa also received a 2015 Patient Innovation award from the University of Portugal, School of Business & Economics, and requested by Dubai ruler, King Sheik Mohammad, to present at the World Government Summit – Edge of Government exhibit in the United Arab Emirates. Additional international honors include a request from the London Science Museum to host The SHOWER SHIRT® for the museums Science Innovation Exhibit, which expands across 78 locations in Europe, where Lisa and The SHOWER SHIRT® are represented as one of the first Patient Innovation award series recipients.

Lisa has been featured in FORBES Magazine, the Huffington Post and Readers Digest; FOX News, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Lifetime TV’s, ‘The Balancing Act,’ discussing her invention and the legislative filing of the ‘Post Mastectomy Infection Reduction Act,’ sponsored by United States Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL) and Congressman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL).

A Health/Medical broadcast journalist, Elysian Magazine print columnist, corporate healthcare consultant, media strategist, guest speaker and obvious entrepreneur, Lisa has more than 30 years of experience in the field of health/medical journalism, corporate communications, news issue management and media relations. Lisa was the original Health/Medical television anchor/reporter for Central Florida News 13 (CNN-affiliate) in Orlando; her background in television also includes anchoring at America’s Health Network (now Discovery Health); reporting for ‘Success Central Florida’ on WKMG Local 6, also in Orlando, and feature reporter for the Travel Channel. Lisa consults with Gannett News Service as a broadcast media coach and works for both CNTV and NADA-TV as a medical television correspondent.

Lisa travels often for speaking engagements across the country and internationally discussing The SHOWER SHIRT® and her ongoing initiatives to support breast cancer survivors and related programs. Lisa frequently guest lectures at colleges and universities across the United States discussing ‘Social Entrepreneurship’ and the focus of multiple academic thesis on the topic.

Lisa’s philanthropic work includes being a member of the Cocoa Village Playhouse Board of Director’s, Digital Arts for Autism Board of Directors, Space Coast Early Steps, and a National Breast Friends Advisory Council Member. Lisa has volunteered for the Central Florida Second Harvest Food Bank and Central Florida Homeless Coalition for the past 30 years. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Science (BS) in Journalism from Murray State University, Murray Ky; and her Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Master’s in Digital Marketing and eCommerce (MS) from the University of Barcelona, European School of Business, Barcelona, Spain.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The best opportunity in which I ever had was becoming a health/medical broadcast journalist in the Orlando television market. I had always LOVED clinical research and I earned a Journalism degree while in college. Luckily, I was able to combine my love of health/medical news with television journalism. This essentially was a great start to my career. After moving on from TV medical news, I then worked as a media strategist with a couple of large hospital systems. It was during that time I was diagnosed with breast cancer and subsequently invented a product (which is also patented), for breast cancer/chest surgery patients to shower in, safely. I still love medical news and ghost write for several doctors, for newspaper and magazine articles, while also hosting my own health/wellness guest column in a national women’s magazine.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
I read a book titled “The Impossible” which covered big businesses who had thrived. I remember a comment which stated, “It’s harder to bring a product to market which has NEVER existed, vs. bringing a product to market which already exists and you go back and change/update it 2 to 3-percent and try to re-patent it. This was exactly what I was trying to do with my shower garment invention which would support chest surgery patients while showering. I was bringing, what is now known as The SHOWER SHIRT to market, a product which had never existed. Why do i know this? Because breast cancer patients like me, were having to shower in plastic trash bags after surgery. With that, I not only brought the product to market, but I then was required to teach customers as to why it was needed after certain chest surgeries.

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