You began your career in Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago (formerly Children’s Memorial Hospital) before moving to private treatment and starting Westside Children’s Therapy in 2006. What during the early journey motivated you to launch your own business?

In 1984, my passion for children led me to my early career at Children's Memorial Hospital. I thought I would remain at that job forever – I loved it! But in 1986, when I had my first child, it became more difficult to commute downtown and leave my infant for long days. In 1989, with two children at home, I began dreading the long commute. Some doctors suggested I save families and myself time and coordinate care closer to our homes, and I started seeing two private patients. At the same time, the hospital began offering time and a half pay for weekend coverage, which motivated me to change my work schedule to two weekdays and every weekend. My pay did not change, and I was able to be with my children more.

I continued to dip my toes deeper into the world of private practice and was increasingly seeing patients in their homes in the evenings when my husband got home from work. As my patient load increased, I began filling up some daytime hours as well. My parents were aware of all the driving I was doing from house to house – often with my children in tow – so when a small apartment attached to their farmhouse became available, they offered it to me. I turned it into a therapy space and relocated my patients to this one common location. My children would hang out with my mom while I was working, and they grew up watching me work with patients.

In 1996, motivated by a strong desire to bring high-quality city therapy to the suburbs, my colleague and I opened our first office in Frankfort, Illinois. By 1998, with an increasing caseload of private patients, I transitioned completely into private practice. My partner and I dissolved our partnership in 2006, and that is when I named my practice Westside Children’s Therapy.

Tell us more about what Westside does and the driving mission behind your work.

What is paramount for me is to continue our work to provide the highest-quality rehabilitative pediatric therapy possible. To achieve this, it is critically important to offer ongoing guidance and training to our therapists and employees. I am personally driven by a strong interest in understanding the basis of movements and in learning what drives human performance. It has taken many years of trial and error, successes and failures, to perfect my treatment techniques, and it is very important to me to share this knowledge with my newer therapists so the patients in our care can achieve great outcomes.

Westside grew to 25 locations in the Chicago area from 2006 to 2025. What was the biggest lesson you learned from scaling the company?

Do not let scaling change the quality of your care! When initially scaling the company, it was difficult to offer the needed support and training to all of our new therapists. I witnessed a decline in skills, and this bothered me. It took some time to improve our training system so that therapists felt fully supported. During the initial scaling, it was devastating to lose some good therapists who wanted more support. I learned how important it is to provide eager young therapists with the knowledge they are seeking.

Families are at the heart of what Westside does, and several of your own family members work alongside you in the business. What is it like working with your family?

I have always loved my children being around me at work and was happy with their interest in being involved in what was important to me. However, I was unprepared to handle a host of problems and unexpected conflicts that came up when we scaled the company. Everyone had their own concerns and opinions based on their role.

We also had a spouse working at the company who created problems for our family and the business. In retrospect, I should have had a strong contract signed before hiring a nonblood relative. Every case is different, but I would be cautious when hiring spouses, as they may not have the same level of concern for the family business.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I think I would convince myself to address issues the minute they arise no matter how difficult or insignificant they may seem. Do not allow concerns to fester. I have learned they will never just go away or be forgotten. Also, do not trust everyone you meet, as some people cannot be trusted. Build skills to be more attentive and cautious regarding people and their intents.