Holohan, 31, (homehelpers@sbcglobal.net) is president and owner of Home Helpers in St. Louis, a company that provides personal and companion services to the elderly. He is one of several young St. Louis professionals who are reaching across the generational gap, turning a profit in the process.

"It's a great job; you can feel really good about it and have a good, lucrative business," says Michelle Bain, 36, owner of seven Home Instead franchises in St. Louis and Kansas City (michellebain@msn.com). Home Instead is based in Omaha, Neb.

Bain got involved in elder care after seeing the trials and tribulations her family went through finding care for her grandparents.

"It was a nightmare, to navigate through something you know nothing about, you don't know the system, you don't know what questions to ask," she says. "It's a pretty daunting task for someone who's never gone through it before."

After some bad experiences with care givers, Bain decided to provide the services she found lacking in the market and bought her franchises for $30,000 seven years ago with a partner, whom she later bought out. The company provides nonmedical personal care services such as bathing assistance, meals and light housekeeping. The company accepts some long-term care insurance but services are mostly paid out-of-pocket by the client.

"I saw this huge need and emptied out mine and my husband's bank accounts and threw the dice because I felt so passionate about it," she says.

That passion has paid off. Bain says 2002 revenue for St. Louis and Kansas City combined was approximately $2.75 million. The company employs approximately 200 between both locations, and Bain says that she expects the business to keep growing well into the future as demand increases.

"Everybody wants to stay in their own home, and they want to maintain their daily routine and not go somewhere else where someone dictates that to them."

Holohan's company also provides services to help the elderly remain comfortable in their own homes.

"When I was in (nursing homes) I realized there were a lot of people there who didn't really need to be there, but their family was out of town or they didn't have any other options to stay in their home," Holohan says.

Holohan majored in business as an undergrad but remained interested in gerontology, taking psychology and social work classes in addition to business. He continued to look for a way to turn his desire to help the elderly into a career.

After graduating, he worked for Ernst & Young Health Care Consulting Group, focusing on post-acute care. It was during this time that Holohan decided to put all of his energies toward helping the elderly. He left the company and enrolled in graduate school at Washington University, earning a dual degree -- an MBA and a master's in social work with a concentration in gerontology.

After graduating, he got his nursing home administrator's license and began looking for a way to make his mark. He saw his choices as consulting, running a retirement community or doing something on his own.

"Over the last 10 or 15 years of just looking at the industry, I realized that less than 10 percent of the population will ever end up in a retirement community, an independent assisted living or nursing home," he says. "Most people stay in their own home."

Looking at the numbers, Holohan realized he could make the greatest impact by focusing on those who remain in their own homes, but may need a little extra help.

Most of the local home-care companies he saw focused on the Medicare and Medicaid model, where patients get out of the hospital and the government subsidizes their care at home. While these companies helped with the medical side of things, they weren't offering the services that keep people in their homes, such as bill paying, cooking or transportation.

"You find that most people lose the ability to do just a couple of the daily living functions, and then their family has to put them in a retirement community or do something else," he says. "We just felt there was this huge niche out there."

Holohan saw this niche as an opportunity and he and his wife bought a Home Helpers franchise. The Cincinnati-based company focuses on these services, and provided an easy in to the business. Startup costs for Home Helpers franchises are between $24,000 and $42,000.

Holohan bought the franchise in March 2002 and hired his first employee May 7 of that year. The company has grown by leaps and bounds -- currently Holohan has about 45 employees. Although he declined to release revenue numbers, he did say his was the fastest-growing franchise in the company last year.

In addition to helping people in their homes, Holohan says Home Helpers can also assist seniors who are currently in retirement communities so they don't have to be moved to another level of care.

With an extremely successful first year under its belt, Home Helpers is looking toward even more growth this year.

"The first year we were just trying to make our name known in St. Louis," he says. But now that the company is a bit more established, he says he'd like to expand the service area outside of St. Louis to include Illinois and other parts of Missouri, possibly as early as the end of the year. Holohan says he also plans to partner with Solutions For Better Aging, a national company that provides in-home medical products. That project will include a Web site to serve the St. Louis area.

Just as difficult as adjusting to functioning differently at home is understanding the myriad issues that surround the aging process.

Valerie Van Booven (valerie@seniorcaresolutionsinc.com), 32, president and founder of Senior Care Solutions Inc. in St. Louis, started her company in 1999 after working for Unity Medical Group as a case manager.

"What we ended up doing all the time was giving adult children with aging parents a 15-minute crash course in Medicare, Medicaid, who's going to take Mom home and take care of her, all of those things," Van Booven says. "The children were overwhelmed, stressed out, surprised that their parent wasn't going to be in the hospital longer."

Van Booven, who is a registered nurse, realized there was a need and decided geriatric care management would help alleviate some of the problems she saw, and the idea for Senior Care Solutions was born.

The company helps families navigate the stormy waters of long-term care issues, find them services and recommend care. Van Booven, who declined to disclose revenue figures for the company, is a regular guest speaker for many organizations and groups throughout the country on various topics related to the aging process, care giving, long-term care issues and long-term care insurance. She is the author of "Long Term Care Planning for Insurance Professionals," published in May 2002, and she also writes a monthly column for Progressive Woman Magazine. n ms

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