Lightbridge Academy Continues Impressive Momentum; Brings Its Circle of Care to Detroit with Latest Signing

[Detroit, MI] — Lightbridge Academy®, one of the nation’s leading providers of early education and child care, has announced the signing of a new center in Detroit, Michigan. The East Coast-based franchise has entered several new markets over the past few years as entrepreneurs recognize the opportunity to introduce an essential and rewarding service to their local community. Two of those entrepreneurs are Jayesh and Vaishali Patel — the franchise owners and local residents behind the new Detroit Lightbridge Academy.

“I loved the Lightbridge Academy concept,” said Jayesh. “It creates an opportunity for parents to have an ongoing connection and access to real-time information on their children. This transparency is key to building trust and strong relationships with families. It doesn’t really exist in our market. Lightbridge Academy’s approach to helping children develop and learn has true value in this area, and we are looking forward to bringing the concept to Detroit.” 

As parents of a 9-year-old and 12-year-old, the couple knows the value of quality education and child care. After visiting a friend in New Jersey who owns a Lightbridge Academy location, the Patels were immediately intrigued by the franchise. 

Aside from being parents themselves, the couple has years of business experience in their respective fields. Jayesh Patel is a professional engineer in the automotive industry. He has also been involved in his family’s restaurant franchise business for 20 years. Vaishali Patel works in the medical field part-time as a sonographer at the local hospital. Much of the pair’s decision to open a Lightbridge Academy can be attributed to their customer service orientation and ability to relate to other parents in the search for a great child care provider. 

“We loved that it involved kids,” said Vaishali Patel. “When my own children went to daycare, we were so focused on choosing the right place. We had certain expectations that we wanted to be met. Lightbridge Academy is a service that I would have wanted for my own children. It’s not just daycare; it’s a learning opportunity.” 

As the Patels focus on hiring employees, including a center director, they are looking for individuals who share their values and can prioritize providing a customer-first approach for the parents in the community. 

“We want to hire a top-notch team of professionals who have a passion for children and education, especially when looking for a center director,” he said. “They will be running the day-to-day operations, so we want to ensure their values align with ours and the brand's.”

In 2022, Lightbridge Franchise Company celebrated 28 signings for a total of 158 locations, entering new markets like Texas and Ohio while continuing to grow in existing markets like North Carolina and Florida. 

To help support that growth, the Lightbridge Academy team is continuing to build out the systems, processes and platforms that will position individual franchisees for success. For example, the brand recently rolled out a new “land banking” strategy, in which the Lightbridge team proactively finds and secures ideal real estate prior to a franchisee signing in that market. Thus, when the franchise owner does sign, they can become operational much faster.  

Looking ahead, the Lightbridge Academy team is eager to partner with passionate and qualified franchisees like the Patels in target markets across Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York. 

“We couldn’t be more excited to bring Lightbridge Academy’s tradition of educational child care excellence as The Solution for Working Parents® to Detroit, and we couldn’t have found better partners to help us do it than Jayesh and Vaishali,” said CEO Gigi Schweikert. “This is an incredible time for Lightbridge Academy overall as we continue to make a positive impact for everyone in our Circle of Care and the communities we serve.”

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. Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, Lightbridge Academy provides quality early education and child care programs to children aged six weeks through kindergarten. The company currently has over 140 child care centers either open or in development throughout Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas 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 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. For the 2nd year in a row, Lightbridge Academy was on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies. In 2023, Lightbridge Academy was featured for the 9th year on Entrepreneur Magazine's Franchise 500.