Franchisee Profile: Mike Steiner

As an owner of Right at Home in Grayslake, Illinois, Mike Steiner has serviced many clients. There were the veterans of World War II and Vietnam. He’s helped families cope with the progression of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. He’s even assisted his own 94-year-old great-aunt.

Steiner remembers them all. But in particular, he remembers his client who fought in the Battle of the Bulge more than 70 years ago.

“One of my clients, a veteran artilleryman, was notoriously hard to work with and had already been through several in-home care providers with little success. When he came to Right at Home, I decided to pair him with one of my caregivers—a woman who served in Afghanistan as an artillery member as well,” Steiner said. “The experience changed him. After I put those two together, the client’s wife would tell me how he has never talked to someone the way he talked to my caregiver. It was an instant bond. She brought such joy to him.”

Steiner himself is a veteran, having served in the Navy aboard the USS Puget Sound. For 20 years, he worked as a project manager for Motorola, all the while helping to take care of his great-aunt and other ageing family members. The experience helped him naturally develop a love for helping people.

“It felt right to go into this line of business. I started looking into the most reputable in-home care industries. Integrity means a lot to me—so does honesty,” Steiner said. “I wanted something I could feel proud of, and I was fortunate to find Right at Home.”

With nearly 58 employees serving the Chicagoland area, Steiner identified one need in particular—many of the clients he was called to help were veterans. His past experiences showed him that oftentimes veteran clients would respond best when receiving in-home care from likeminded people—other veterans.

“I had another client who was a veteran, and he was known for being very difficult and set in his ways,” Steiner said. “I set him up with one of our caregivers who was once a Marine. Together they would go out fishing or go on afternoon road trips. That meant everything to the client—just having someone to keep him company.”

Steiner said that veterans have long been—and always will be—a staple in his employee roster. He believes their integrity, dedication and commitment make them a perfect fit for Right at Home. To him, veterans are a known entity and an invaluable asset to his company. His dedication to this belief has recently gotten him featured in The Chicago Tribune and The New York Times.

As Steiner’s business evolves, he has started focusing more of his efforts on serving people with dementia. Over the years he noticed that a majority of the people who came to him—nearly nine out of ten—were struggling with how to care for a family member suffering from Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Many simply had no idea what to do, and were left feeling stranded, helpless, distraught, angry and anxious.

“A lot of what we try to do is to explain to the family members some of the things we can do—we explain to them that we’re not just here to take care of their loved ones, but to also help coach the family members on how to better handle the situation,” Steiner said. “It really helps them. It gives them a better sense of relief. With Alzheimer’s there is no way you can bring your loved one back into our world, so you have to change your own habits to get into their world.”

Steiner believes that the experience needed to work with someone with dementia is extreme, and he has recently increased his training for employees so they can really dig in and understand the disease, how it affects a client and how it affects the family as a whole. While the journey isn’t easy, Steiner believes he’s helped to make an impact on each of the people’s lives he’s been a part of through Right at Home.

“It’s the relief that you see in a family member’s face that tells me we’re doing the right thing. The relief is them knowing they’ve contacted the right company.”

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