Franchisor Stories
SPONSORED
The rapidly growing early education and child care franchise plans to open11 new locations in 2022 with a goal to open 150 by 2026, and Jim DiRugeris, SVP of franchise sales, recently joined the brand to help meet these goals.
Lightbridge Academy, one of the nation’s leading providers of early education and child care, experienced impressive growth, opening nine new locations in 2021, completing 10 signings, and plans to leverage that momentum to open 11 new locations before the end of 2022. To help meet this goal in the new year, Jim DiRugeris joined the Lightbridge Academy leadership team late in 2021 as senior vice president of franchise sales.
“Over the years the concentration has been on building out concentrically from New Jersey, to Pennsylvania and New York, and really becoming operationally strong,” said DiRugeris. “We wanted to build close to home, build out the infrastructure and make sure that we could deliver our Gold Standard in health and safety known as The Lightbridge Promise® before expanding further from the home base. Now we’re more than ready for that expansion, and so are our franchisees.”
According to DiRugeris, Lightbridge Academy is targeting growth in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Florida. He also noted that the brand, in addition to crossing the 75-unit mark in 2022, also has plans to award at least 12 unique licenses.
With more than 120 centers open, under construction or in development in markets across the U.S, the brand blazed a path of expansion in 2021. Additionally, the franchise recently announced plans to expand its system to more than 150 centers by 2026.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, it has been challenging for working parents to be able to get their jobs done while also caring for their children during the day,” said Gigi Schweikert, CEO of Lightbridge Academy. “We are so honored to be The Solution for Working Parents®, gaining the trust of families in all the communities we are serving. We are looking forward to continuing to open in new markets across the U.S. throughout 2022.”
The fuel for this accelerated growth plan was an infusion of capital in early 2021 from investment partners Westerly Group (Westerly) & Elmsley Capital (Elmsley). Unlike traditional private equity investors, who invest from funds with limited holding periods, Westerly & Elmsley invest on behalf of a small handful of families without a requirement to sell.
This permanent capital makes Westerly & Elmsley the ideal partners for Lightbridge Academy, whose core commitment to providing a high quality of care and early education in a safe and trusted environment has played a critical role in the lives of thousands of families for nearly 25 years. This shift combined Lightbridge Franchise Company with Jule Holdings, the owner of the corporately operated child care centers, under a new company — Lightbridge Holdings Group.
In addition to growing its number of units, Lightbridge Academy has continued to invest in franchisee support. In 2021, it launched Lightbridge Journey®, a new center management software that provides a 360-degree, centralized system for franchisees, providing increased operational efficiency, reduced operational costs and ultimately improving communication between staff and parents.
During the initial rollout of the Lightbridge Journey app, the platform proved its value, saving 28 centers approximately 336 hours of time over nine months, providing them almost an entire day per week to spend on relationship-building with center families.
DiRugeris reflected on what it means for the brand to be growing at such a phenomenal rate and on the quality that Lightbridge Academy continues to add to families’ daily lives.
“We are not selling licenses; we are awarding franchises — and there's a huge difference,” said DiRugeris. “For me, it's about building relationships and bringing like-minded individuals into the system who are going to share our core values, support the other franchisees and execute on the Circle of Care to show our care for children, parents, team members, franchise owners and the communities in which we’re located. There is no greater compliment than to have your existing franchisees seeking to grow with you and open more locations. It is foundational to a strong brand, and we are grateful for the opportunity to grow this amazing brand with them.”
Learn more about franchise opportunities at https://lightbridgeacademyfranchise.com/.
About Lightbridge Academy:
Established in 1997, the company was founded as a family business based on core values and a Circle of Care philosophy that places equal importance on the needs of children, their families, teachers, center owners and the community. Lightbridge Academy provides quality early education and child care programs to children aged six weeks through kindergarten. The company currently has over 120 child care centers either open or in development throughout Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. In response to COVID-19, Lightbridge Academy launched The Lightbridge Promise as the Gold Standard for health & safety in the child care industry. In 2022, Lightbridge Academy was featured on Entrepreneur Magazine's Franchise 500 following ranking the previous year. In 2020, the company was featured on the Inc. 5000 ranking, Franchise Times Top 200+ awards, and on Newsweek’s 2021 list of America’s Best Customer Service.
Sign up for the 1851 Franchise newsletter to get our biggest stories before everyone else
By signing up, you agree to our user agreement (including class action waiver and arbitration provisions), and acknowledge our privacy policy.
