April 2014
| Business World Magazine | 181
ily and home. “We’re a private company, but
we want to demonstrate that we’re there for
people.”
That mission has been accomplished
through a series of incremental steps since
the start date.
Heartland began when Cheek was
awarded a contract to provide EMS service
to Bleckley County, a jurisdiction of 12,000
residents that’s about 40 miles southeast of
Macon and home to a strip of an interstate
highway whose full expanse stretches from
Macon to Savannah.
Recognizing that one county’s 911 service
wasn’t enough to sustain a business, Cheek
branched out with other services, initially
working with the Carl Vinson VA Medical
Center in Dublin – about 35 miles north-
