2016 Rhode Island and New England Microenterprise of the Year

Ensuring That Physical Limitations will no longer dictate an independent home life

Linda and Bill Bohmbach, Founder and Owner, Home Healthsmith

Linda and Bill Bohmbach’s story did not start with their business, Home Healthsmith. Linda began her career in consumer products industry with major drug and food retailers, Bill was the owner of his own professional elevator company. While these positions were lucrative and both Bill and Linda were successful they wanted to do more. They believed in helping people and their passionate advocating and volunteering at the MS society allowed them to see how they could.

The Bohmbachs had an idea that they could provide products and services to help clients achieve mobility and safety in their homes. With this thought in mind Bill sold his company to focus full time on bringing this idea to life. Before long the demands of what would become Home Healthsmith ensured that Linda would leave her position to dedicate herself full time as well and by 2012 they had begun their journey to improve the quality of life for their customers.

Linda and Bill began offering solutions to help accommodate a person’s individual in-home needs such as elevators, stair lifts, ceiling lefts, vertical platform lifts, wheelchair ramps, home modifications, installation of grab bars, portable showers, and to her accessibility equipment. They also provide many of these options in rentals which helps to enhance their customers freedom, improve their sense of control and protect their personal dignity.

Home Healthsmith grew quickly and no longer would their in-home operations suffice. Linda began searching for an adequate space and found their first office which allocated them 500 square feet. In less than one year they would once again be searching for a bigger space and by July of 2014 had moved into a 4905 square foot location at 207 High Point #2 in Portsmouth. Even with the space provided Home Healthsmith continued to grow at an astounding rate and once again the need for more space had Linda acquiring an additional 1250 square feet at their current location with a 4000 square coming in Q1 of 2016.

Recently, they have opened The Center for Adaptive Living at High Point in Portsmouth. This is an open environment that allows seniors, disabled individuals, rehab patients and many more including those that want to age-in-place in their homes. They also have architects, builders, PT’s, OT’s, and nurses who bring their expert knowledge to help those who may be interested in learning more about the process. This site also provides incredible training to professionals and is the only applicable site on the east coast and elevates Home Healthsmith above the competition, Linda also added this site isn’t all that separates them from their competitors, “we have a very strong project management where we work with architects and builders on, we also develop relationships with our clients as well as the builders and architects. What we find is that there are competitors out their but they’re not doing what we do, they’re not answering phone calls, they’re not getting back to the client who may have a service issue in a timely manner. People need stair lifts and elevators and in a majority of these cases they need them in order stay safe in their homes or in order for them to even live in their homes.”

For all their success and growth this still is very much a family business with the heart and soul of it being Linda and Bill. Linda felt strongly that even though she was the recipient of this award that she had not done it alone, “This is a team effort and Bill and I couldn’t have done it without each other.” Linda elaborated more on why the company has been so successful, “We have really developed a strong team here and one of the biggest things is that we are striving to have a self-managing company. We’ve empowered our employees to make the right decisions and it is really working with them and allowed them to grow as well.”

For their demonstrated success and potential for future growth, the U.S. Small Business Administration is pleased to honor Linda and Bill Bohmbach, Owners of Home Healthsmith, as the 2016 Rhode Island and New England Microenterprise of the Year.

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