In the May issue of The O&P EDGE, Better Business will focus on the ins and outs of purchasing and running the family business. The article uses the advice and experience of Rachel Friddle-Johnson, CPO, and Rebecca Friddle, who purchased Friddle’s Orthopedic Appliances, Honea Path, South Carolina, from their father Frank Friddle Jr., CO. As with many O&P stories, the Friddle family has been well represented in the profession for decades.
The Friddle family roots in O&P sprouted in 1929, when William Dewey Friddle Sr., a self-taught orthotist, was hired to run the orthopedic department at Shriners Hospitals for Children – Greenville, South Carolina. He worked there for 37 years. Sons William Dewey Jr., CO, and Frank Sr., CO, joined him at Shriners, with Frank Sr. taking over the department upon his father’s retirement in 1966. The three also founded and ran Greenville Orthopedic Appliance as a side business. Frank Sr. left Shriners to open Friddle Orthopedic patient care facility in 1967. He also did scoliosis bracing for Duke University patients and consulted for Pope Brace Company once it moved to Greenwood, South Carolina. Frank Jr., CO, the sisters’ father, joined the family business in 1982, around which time the company also branched into central fabrication and supplies. Elsewhere along the O&P family tree, William Dewey Jr., CO, went on to become the sole proprietor of Greenville Orthopedic. William D. “Pete” III, CP, BOCO, and William Dewey IV, CPA, work for Active Mobility Upstate, Spartanburg, South Carolina.
