BRIAN LANIER
TITLE: Owner and Family Physician
ORGANIZATION: Promina Health
WHAT THE NOMINATOR SAID: “Dr. Lanier is a Marine veteran who enlisted in 2001 after 9/11 and was inspired to go into the medical field through a doctor who cared for him in the service. He graduated from UNC School of Medicine and completed residency in family medicine at NHRMC.
 
Dr. Lanier, a native son of Southeastern North Carolina, opened the first Direct Primary Care (DPC) practice in Wilmington one year ago. DPC is a new and innovative model of healthcare that is transforming how primary care is delivered: focusing on transparency, affordability, quality of care, and restoring the doctor-patient relationship.
 
By charging an affordable monthly fee to patients, doctors are not constrained by quotas or excess paperwork placed on them as a result of insurance-based care, and it allows them more time to deliver a broad scope of services — including some procedures — and focus on comprehensive preventative care.”
 
-Marjorie Lanier
 
NOAH MIYAZAKI
TITLE: Vice President of Business Development
ORGANIZATION: Miyazaki Enterprises
WHAT THE NOMINATOR SAID: “The Miyazaki family is changing the way residents train for surgery. They have developed a cutting edge surgical training model for OBGYNs and have received NIH grant funding to research how to integrate VR into surgical training. They are also exploring other verticals as well.”
 
-Riley Stephenson
 
MORE INFORMATION: Noah Miyazaki, who graduated from the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Cameron School of Business this year, has been with Miyazaki Enterprises LLC since its inception in 2011. Originally employed to establish and manage business infrastructure, development, and sales, his role has expanded to include physician education, research and development coordination, curriculum development and data publication.
 
“After I assisted with my first surgical simulation course and saw first-hand the deficit in training and surgical skill, I became passionate about making surgery safer for patients through growing the skills of surgeons,” Noah Miyazaki said in his LinkedIn profile. “I had long heard from my father, Dr. Douglas Miyazaki, about the lack of training from residents but it was not until I observed first-hand the lack of training that I began to fully understand what he meant.”
 
SARA ROSE HARCUS
TITLE: Founder
ORGANIZATION: Dmanna
WHAT THE NOMINATOR SAID: “I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside my wife, Sara, in a few companies. She always exceeds her goals and goes out of her way as a leader to make sure her team has what they need, even when it has meant taking a paycut in her own salary. She is working to change and save lives at Dmanna by preventing urinary tract infections.
 
The first product Dmanna launched has been shown to be effective at preventing UTIs in several clinical trials. It is 10 times cheaper than antibiotics and has none of the side effects or bacterial resistance problems. Dmanna’s products are being used by urology offices in three different states already to prevent UTIs in their patients. This simple, non-antibiotic prevention product is changing the lives of Dmanna users and has the potential to change the lives of millions more. Sara has created an innovative solution to this problem and tackled it in a way that competitor companies have not.”

- Josh Harcus