Dianne Boazman and betty Landreaux look like complete opposites – Boazman with dark hair and brown eyes and Landreaux with blond hair and blue eyes – but these two owners of Home Care Solutions have such a partnership and common outlook that when one woman begins her sentence, more often than not the other finishes it.
It is this commonality and deep understanding of one another that has allowed the women to grow their business from a concept created through phone calls at a kitchen table to the one of leading home and geriatric care companies in the United States.
“We help families understand their options during a time when everything feels overwhelming,” Boazman says. “We just say to them, ‘Just tell me what we need to do.’”
Home Care Solutions is the bridge that joins families to services their loved ones may now require; services, which the family previously didn’t know were an option.
With both of their backgrounds in social work, specifically in the health care subset, Boazman and Landreaux say their decision to create Home Care Solutions was based upon years witnessing the need for a complete-care company.
So in 1991, Care Management Solutions was formed, and in 2001 they added their own home care services, renaming the company Home Care Solutions.
“It was just the right time and right place,” Boazman says. “There is a need for our service. It’s sad, but usually what happens is the family doesn’t expect a crisis and it happens. That’s where we come in; we help navigate them through the difficult decisions ahead.”
It began with the two women sub-renting a single office (shared with Landreaux’s accountant uncle); now, however, Home Care Solutions has become a state-licensed PCA (personal care attendant), multi-million dollar company with more than 100 employees, including office attendants, clinical social workers and registered nurses.
“We started off slow,” Landreaux says. “Networking really was the cornerstone of our success. We had to sell an idea to people that didn’t exist yet. Both Boazman and Landreaux are involved with and serve on multiple boards in their field, including the National Association of Geriatric Care Managers (of which Boazman was elected president in 2000).
“On our own, we would have never built this,” Landreaux says. “Our complimentary skills are what made our company successful. We really are Frick and Frack.”
Mentor (Boazman): My father; he was self-employed and I attained my strong work ethic because of him. He was encouraging of social work and really pushed me to do what I wanted, and be good at it.
Mentor (Landreaux): For me, especially in the beginning, it was a senior M.S.W. (master of social work) at the rehab hospital in Houston, who was both a professional and personal mentor, Joe Childress. Now, we would say, it would be some of the leading geriatric care managers around the country.
Defining Moment: When we said, “Yes; we’ll find you a live-in care giver.” We hadn’t done anything like that before. This was the case that 200 care givers wanted. It really launched our career. We went to this home care conference with no cases, because we just started, and we left with a family who really gave us free reigns to make their mother’s life better.
Advice to Young Women: Join a leadership conference. You need to focus your ideas in a realistic way. Find a good partner, one who balances and complements you.
Goals: We want to continue providing the best case we can to as many people as we can. We love helping people and making their lives easier, especially during the difficult times they often face when they come to us. We want to add the right professional and care-giving staff, so Home Care Solutions can continue to grow and thrive, even after we retire.
Favorite things about what they do (Boazman): I really enjoy the human resources side of the company. I really love working with the administrative side and leadership. I enjoy client services, but I get a little more energized with working with the HR manager.
Favorite Things About What I Do (Landreaux): I like doing the direct services. I like training people to support the client services part of our business. I like sitting here, at this table, and figuring out people’s problems, then finding a solution and sending them out to the right people to get their problems fixed.