Serving Scott County for
More Than 104 Years!

Local Company Opens Lab, Hearing Center in Gate City

From staff reports


Edwinna Baker of Baker Hearing Aid talks
about a program that provides hearing aids at
a reduced cost for those that qualify.

A local company is returning to its Scott County roots as they provide a new service that allows better hearing for their clients.

Following a unique invention by one of its owners, Baker Hearing Aid is re-opening its Gate City location with a new feature but the same customer service.

The company is owned and operated by Lawrence and Edwinna Baker and at one time had as many as four locations in the Virginia and Tennessee. But as they have grown older, the couple learned an important business lesson – if you provide excellent and compassionate quality service, customers will follow your business to wherever it is located.


Lawrence Baker makes some fine-tuned
adjustments to a hearing aid at his Gate City
 facility.

With a return to Gate City, Baker Hearing Aid, located on Ezra McNutt Alley, off of Kane Street, offers hearing aid sales, service and repair with a touch of personal care.

Last year Lawrence, a graduate of Virginia Tech, designed a wax diverter that can be attached to a hearing device to keep ear wax away from the sensitive electronic parts. The new invention, which he patented, is being produced by a small company in Salem with assistance from Virginia Tech.

With this invention, hearing aids can be protected from the harmful effects of ear wax. Edwinna Baker, who has 30 years of experience in the hearing aid industry, explained hearing devices are sensitive to some outside factors that could damage their ability to work properly. She is also a licensed hearing aid specialist in both Virginia and Tennessee. Edwinna earned her national board certification (NBC-HIS) after passing a grueling seven -hour national examination.


Lawrence Baker (back) discusses the latest
steps involved in new developments at Baker
Hearing Aid & Laboratories with patent
attorney Mike Epstein and Virginia Tech
professor John Casali.

“Ear wax and personal perspiration are the two biggest problems with hearing aids,” she remarked. “And there’s not much you can do about personal perspiration. There have been many different things tried by all the manufacturers to design a wax diverter but they all failed simply because the physics weren’t proper. Wax just gets into a hearing aid device and it stops them.”

Drawing on his background as an engineer in his previous career with Western Electric and RCA, Lawrence designed the diverter to block ear wax from reaching the internal workings. Edwinna said with the addition of the wax diverter, hearing aids can easily be removed for cleaning purposes. Before the invention of the diverter, wax would literally destroy a hearing aid device, rendering it useless.

Because the cost of a hearing aid is about $500 and can go upwards to $3,000, the addition of this little invention helps those who suffer from hearing loss keep their devices in good working order.

Baker Hearing Aid is also affiliated with an organization that helps financially-challenged folks receive a reduced cost on hearing aids. Hear Now, a program of the Starkey Hearing Foundation, accepts recommendations from hearing aid specialists on proposed recipients.

Persons in the program must submit an application and after a recommendation based on a hearing test may be eligible to receive a first class hearing aid with an estimated value of $2,000 for about $100.

After living in New Jersey for several years, Lawrence, a native of Scott County and Edwinna, an Abington, Penn. native, relocated to Scott County in the late 1970s to move their teenage children away from potential drug and crime problems in New Jersey high schools.

Edwinna, who has a bachelor’s degree in music and psychology, began working as an assistant to an ophthalmologist/ENT doctor in Clinton, N.J. Her father, who was an OB/GYN in Pennsylvania, didn’t want Edwinna in the medical field and suggested she study music because she could always teach that.

But with the rising costs of raising a family in New Jersey soaring through the roof, Edwinna decided to get a job to help meet the family’s financial needs. With the encouragement of Lawrence, she joined the workforce and began her career in the medical profession.

When the couple moved to Scott County, they purchased a farm and were welcomed into the Baker Hearing Aid business by Lawrence’s brother, Lee Baker. Lee, a pharmacist, ran the local drug store, Gate City Drug, which offered hearing aid service to his customers.

Eventually the couple bought out Lee’s share of the business in 1993 and opened additional locations in Bristol, Norton and Kingsport, Tenn.

Lawrence with his longtime associate patent attorney Mike Epstein and John Cassali, a Virginia Tech professor, who is considered a worldwide expert in hearing conservation, are currently working on two separate hearing aid projects. In addition to the hearing aid wax protection and hearing aid feedback program, the trio is experimenting with solutions for TMJ disorders.

TMJ stands for TemporoMandibular Joint, or the jaw joint. There are two TMJs, one in front of each ear, connecting the lower jaw bone (the mandible) to the skull. The joints allow movement up and down, side to side, and forward and back—all the mobility necessary for biting, chewing and swallowing food, for speaking and for making facial expressions.

Temporomandibular joint diseases and disorders, commonly called TMJ, are a collection of poorly understood conditions characterized by pain in the jaw and surrounding tissues and limitations in jaw movements. Injury and conditions that routinely affect other joints in the body, such as Arthritis, also affect the temporomandibular joint.

This work is currently being conducted at Baker Hearing Aid’s lab in Gate City. The lab is also manufacturing the wax protection system for the Virginia Tech cooperative.

Lawrence and his associates are also hard at work on developing a feedback protection system for hearing aids.

Baker Hearing Aid was honored in 2005 with a Reader’s Choice Award from the Kingsport Times-News among the 12 hearing aid specialists in the area. The company is open five days a week, Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Friday, from 8 a.m. to noon. They also offer evening appointments and emergency service as needed.

The Bakers have two children and two grandsons. Their son, David and his wife, Teresa P. Cheung live in Brooklyn, N.Y. where David works for Bit Max, a digital storage company and Teresa is assistant conductor for the American Symphony Orchestra.

Their daughter, Diane, is married to Greg Thomas and they live in Knoxville, Tenn. with their two sons, Sam, 16 and Adam, 13. Diane is employed by Talbot’s as a certified resource manager and Greg works for Boeing.

The Bakers have spent the past few weeks refurbishing the interior and exterior of their Gate City office and welcome new and old customers.

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