WHEN ANDREW LUSTIG WALKED OUT of the multimillion dollar media business he built over 20 years, he didn’t know what he was going to do. But he knew he wanted to do something that mattered, something that helped people.
I think you could say he’s succeeded. At 40, he trained to become a physician and launched Global Outreach Doctors, a team of volunteer medical professionals including doctors, nurses, paramedics, naturopaths, homeopaths, acupuncturists and psychologists, all of whom travel the world assisting those in desperate need of medical care. To date, they’ve had 38 missions to communities ravaged by earthquakes, wars, and refugee crises.
You didn’t start out as a doctor…
I studied television photography in college. I shot for the local news station, and when I got out of college my first job was as a production assistant for Woody Allen watching parking lots at nights in New York so the crew would have places to park.
Then I worked for a couple of big commercial filmmakers and production companies and ended up in tele-production, worked my way through lots of different positions, and eventually became the president of the National Video Center. We had recording studios, editing facilities, and we started developing content and licensing it. We grew to 12 divisions in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Connecticut, Boston, etc. We had 1,000 employees and contractors. But after twenty years of building this, I was completely burnt out. I had doctors telling me you’re not going to live a long life, not with what you’re doing.
So I decided to quit. I walked out on a Wednesday and about a year later, I became a medic.
How old were you?
Forty.
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