Lexington, KY - To look at Debbie Dyer, you'd never guess she's a farm girl who bush hogs most every weekend, bales hay in the summer and kills a hog every January. She drives a truck, rides horses and four-wheelers, and is a bit of a daredevil, having ridden her bike off a ramp into the farm pond! She impresses most people as the well-dressed, capable professional she is, but this Tates Creek High School graduate clearly knows how to have fun in her spare time. Hanging out with her husband Don - whom she calls her soul mate - sailing in the Caribbean, and sun-bathing are at the top of her list.
Dyer credits her grandmother and mother as major influences on her professional choice. "My Grandmother was a lab tech in Harlan. Watching her at work influenced my interest in medicine. My mother showed me how to be an independent woman and rely on myself." Her former business partner, Jacquie Smith, "Öcontinues to inspire me to be the very best person I can be."
While attending Eastern Kentucky University, Dyer worked as a nurse's aide at a nursing home and then as a student nurse technician at the Veteran's Administration Medical Hospital. "I had been awarded a VA academic scholarship which required two years of post graduate work at the VA Hospital," she explains, "so, after completing the B.S. in nursing, I became a nurse and clinical drug researcher at the VA." After completing her two years there, Dyer moved to a position with University of Kentucky HealthCare.
Less than six years after graduating EKU, Dyer and her close friend, Jacquie Smith, were ready to start their own business. They founded Central Kentucky Research Associates, Inc. (CKRA), the first independent multispecialty clinical drug research center to be established in Central Kentucky. To this day, CKRA is one of the few such centers in the nation that is owned and operated by a woman who is not a physician. Dyer still laughs about those early days: "We were usually the only women in the room at national conferences. Quite an oddity!" CKRA makes it possible for people to participate in clinical drug trials that, according to Dyer, "can change the face of modern medicine."
Dyer and Smith continued to work as partners until Smith's death in 2005, which turned out to be the biggest challenge Dyer has had to face. "She was my partner and my best friend for years, and, after her sudden passing, I felt lost for a long while." At the same time, business was growing and Dyer had no choice but to pull herself together and keep the business going."
The accomplishments of Dyer and Smith have not gone unnoticed. In 1999, CKRA was named Small Business of the Year finalist by the Greater Lexington Chamber of Commerce. In 2000, the two women were recognized as Small Business Persons of the Year in Kentucky by the U.S. Small Business Administration and honored at the White House by then-president Bill Clinton. And in 2007, Dyer was selected to EKU's Hall of Distinguished Alumni and named Woman Business Owner of the year by the National Association of Women Business Owners.
She sees the biggest challenge for her industry as making sure that pharmaceutical companies keep their clinical testing in the United States, where substantial criteria and controls are applied, rather than their moving offshore in an attempt to lower costs.