By Anna-Claire Terry
Staff Reporter
Most CEOs spend a large portion of their lives working to achieve their status as head of a company. That is not the case for 13-year-old Taylor Rosenthal.
The Opelika Middle School student is founder and CEO of his company, RECMED First Aid Kits. RECMED is a sole proprietorship that makes and sells first aid kits at events where youth will be present and first aid kits are not readily available. These types of events include youth sporting events and recreational venues.
“If someone’s kid got hurt in a sporting event, we’re actually sitting out at the event so the mom doesn’t have to go to the store to buy a first aid kit. It’s like a pop-up- shop,” Rosenthal said.
The first aid kits come in sizes small, medium and large. The medical supplies in each kit gets more advanced as the size goes up. The kits contain supplies such as hydrogen peroxide, bandages, cold packs, CPR masks and even supplies for a knocked-out tooth.
“It is geared toward youth athletes, while other things are not geared toward youth athletes,” Rosenthal said.
He has further developed his ideas into the RECMED vending machine, which will resemble the Red Box machines for movie rentals. The RECMED vending machines will be computerized machines in which parents and coaches can choose from the “panic kit” or the “you-pick kit.”
Contents of the kits in the machines are categorized by situations like “scraped knee” and “bee sting.”
Rosenthal’s machines will whole sale for $5,500 each, and he has already seen interest from several larger corporations.
Rosenthal works from RoundHouse in Opelika, where he received assistance with molding his ideas into reality.
“They helped me develop this into something that is actually going to happen, and they have helped my business grow,” Rosenthal said.
Kyle Sandler, founder and executive director of RoundHouse, said Rosenthal did phenomenally well in the Young Entrepreneurs Academy Regional Competition. Rosenthal placed third in his group of 14.
“Taylor has done very well. He spent his entire winter break here working. We even had to kick him out on Christmas Eve and New Year’s to go spend time with his family,” Sandler said.
According to Rosenthal, all of his free time is spent on RECMED, including weekends and nights.
“I try to spend a few hours a day on my business,” he said.
Rosenthal’s intrigue in the business world was sparked at school when he got involved with The Young Entrepreneurs Academy program.
He said it was the interest he had in the work of his parents, Terry and Susan Rosenthal, who are both in the medical industry, that started his idea for his company. The Rosenthal family brainstormed together, and the idea for RECMED First Aid Kits was born.
“I found motivation to run a business on the first day of class with the Young Entrepreneurs Academy program,” Rosenthal said. “My parents have really motivated and encouraged me to work hard and be successful. They taught me to put a lot of hard work into my business.”
Rosenthal said Sandler came to speak to his class and offered to create a logo and give everyone 500 business cards for their companies. This is how Rosenthal hit the ground running with RECMED First Aid Kits.
From there, the RECMED pop-up-shops were developed in about six weeks. The vending machines have been a work in progress since December of 2014.
Rosenthal’s plans for success do not stop with RECMED. The future ninth grader aspires to attend college at the University of Notre Dame to play baseball and pursue a degree in business.
Photo by Anna-Claire Terry
Taylor Rosenthal will enter Opelika High School in the fall as a freshman and the founder and CEO of his own company, RECMED First-Aid Kits.
