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Visiting Angels is an in-home senior-care service. What made you want to get into caregiving?

While I was in school at Des Moines University (DMU), I took care of my great-grandmother. I also volunteered as a court-appointed special advocate for Polk County, where we advocate for children who are in the court system. While doing that, I developed a lot of relationships with social workers.

I’ve always been interested and involved in social issues, so I looked at several different agencies and the model for Visiting Angels was developed by a social worker himself. So the foundation of how we run our business is more of a social-service focus as opposed to a business focus. Obviously you have to have both, but for Visiting Angels, relationships and advocacy are just really important. It just seemed like a natural fit.

Did you ever think you would open a franchise?

No, never. I always knew that I wanted to be a business owner – my parents always were – and I always knew that at some point I wanted to be the one that was responsible for the direction of where a company was going, but I never thought it would be a franchise.

My husband owns his own business and we’ve always kind of thought of different business models, and we would get them going, and they would fizzle out and it wouldn’t work. But I knew that probably the best route to go was franchise, just because the foundation is there and I don’t have to start from scratch; that would take so much time.

What made you want to go back to school?

I stopped working at TMC (Transportation) when I got pregnant with my daughter, and I decided to stay home with her. Then in that time frame, I became one of the caregivers for my great-grandmother who lived in Des Moines. In the process of that, I realized that there was a need, a public health issue and kind of a gap in care for seniors who want to stay in their home, and that’s the reason why I started getting involved.

Public health was an area that I have always been really interested in, so I found out about DMU and enrolled in their program. It was a two-year program, full time, so then I graduated from there and almost immediately opened this agency.

Was it a significant transition from being in the work force to being a student and now a business owner?

Yes, it has been a big transition, but it’s been a transition in the direction that I knew I always wanted to go. There is a lot of flexibility if you own your own business, so that helps a lot and that is the direction that (my husband and I) have always kind of planned on. My daughter is back in school full time now and I got experience as far as caregiving, from taking care of my great-grandmother and my grandmother, who has since passed away just recently, so it’s sort of like everything just kind of fell into line. My two older boys are on their way to college and I’m not taking care of my grandmother any longer, so it was almost one of those opportunities where it was the best time.

Is this a 9-to-5 job?

No, it’s not. Since I am the only one, I answer the phone 24-7, because if someone gets discharged from the hospital at 1 o’clock in the morning and they need somebody at the house right away, we have to be there to answer the phone and make sure that somebody meets the family at their house. So it’s ongoing and I always have the phone here rolled over (to my cellphone).

What was your dream job as a child?

It was always to be a veterinarian for about as long as I could go, then I decided that the math was holding me back. So it’s always been caregiving in one way or another.

What hobbies do you enjoy?

I love to cook and do Pilates. I don’t like Pilates when I’m doing it, but when it’s over I really do like it. Also, (my husband and I) love to read, and we go to Colorado as often as possible to ski.