St. Cloud McAuliffes sell ultrasound business; owner retiring after “a good run” of nearly 40 years

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  • Jack (left) and Floyd McAuliffe pose with one of the first ultrasound machines the family business services, a mid-1980s model.
    Jack (left) and Floyd McAuliffe pose with one of the first ultrasound machines the family business services, a mid-1980s model.
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SonoDepot Ultrasound Solutions, a leader in ultrasound technology repair and solutions, has had an office tucked away on 12th Street in east St. Cloud for nearly 30 years.

It’s been a homegrown company — owner Floyd McAuliffe started it as a side business from his house in 1985, and later brought his brother Jack on as the CEO.

It’s been one of this area’s biggest success stories and best-kept secrets. But at age 61, Floyd has sold the company and will become a part-time St. Cloud resident; he has a place in Colorado that needs his time and work.

He said he’ll keep his home on the St. Cloud lakefront to help support his 94-year-old mother, Evelyn, who also used to work for the company.

He leaves behind a healthy company, despite the pandemic. SonoDepot did $5 million in sales and revenue in 2020, and spent about $1 million in payroll.

“2020 was the springboard to sell. I didn’t plan on working this long anyway,” Floyd said last week as he and Jack worked to empty the building.

SonoDepot came out of a rough time in McAuliffe’s life. He was with Johnson & Johnson’s high-tech ultrasound sector in the 1980s and had just moved to Kissimmee as an easy way to travel out of the Orlando airport while having a rural home life. Shortly after the move, the company eliminated his business unit as it downsized following a series of poisoning deaths from arsenic-laced Tylenol.

“I was 25, married, bought a home and had two young children. I had to find a way to support all that,” he said.

He went to work for a series of other machine-servicing companies, but still serviced a few of his existing J&J customers on the side.

“Eventually I was making $300,000 a year from my home business and $40,000 from my full-time job. So I quit, took all my customers — and theirs — and hired Jack to structure everything.”

McAuliffe had to thank Dr. Daniel Donovan, a Melbourne cardiologist, for motivating him to become self-employed.

“He gave me the confidence to do this. I never borrowed a cent from him, but he gave me emotional support, the opportunity to do it on my own,” he said.

SonoDepot, originally called Florida Medical Consultants, started from a shop built in Floyd’s backyard that the business quickly outgrew. It acquired the St. Cloud building in 1993, and he committed to the growing community.

“My children were born in Kissimmee. Logistically this is a great place. In the beginning we solely serviced Florida, and it’s easy to get to everywhere from here. The next 25 years were a blur. The industry kept changing and evolving and we evolved with it.”

He said it was never a dream to eventually sell the business.

“My dream was to feed my family and have health and wealth and support feeding other people’s families, and serving our customers,” he said. “Up until the end, Jack and I were in the field servicing customers. That was my happy place. Being in this office drove me crazy.”

To hear Floyd talk, SonoDepot took on his persona of supporting other people.

“We treated customers really, really well. It affected the bottom line, but we maintained we were a family business. The new company wanted our customer base.”

All 20 or so SonoDepot employees have the opportunity to go on to the next company, and Floyd will go on to his next life adventures.

“They’re all working from home, which they love, and they’ll be getting a raise with the new company, which I love,” he said, noting he’ll spend time in Colorado and do all the traveling he couldn’t do in the last year due to Covid-19 as a newly-minted retiree.

“Will I start another business? Absolutely not. I’ll answer calls, but I’ve put my hands in my last machines,” he said. “It’s been a good run, but I’m tired of working, for sure.”