 Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Putahoe Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. This show is based on my book, which is also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence, and finding greatness. My special guest today is an extraordinary woman who is the president of Wilson Care Group. She is Shelly Wilson, and today we are going beyond healthcare. Hey, Shelly, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you so much for having me, Rusty. Thank you. I know that you grew up on a farm in Iowa, and I want to know what were the best parts of growing up on a farm. Oh, my goodness. You know what? When you're little, you really don't appreciate what you have, and you don't have the perspective. But certainly, as an adult, I appreciate the values that I have now because of where I came from. It's very similar to Hawaii, where people take care of one another. It helps their neighbors out. You can walk across the street and borrow eggs from just about anyone. But fortunately, growing up on a farm, we had lots of eggs, so we didn't have to borrow too many eggs. But I think just having such a wholesome upbringing was certainly valuable and being part of such a tight-knit community that really gave me the values and my foundation in life and what I've accomplished and who I am definitely is from being that little Iowa farm girl. And I was quite the tomboy growing up. So I think that's always something that people think is very odd that I am so girly now. I was definitely in the dirt and always in trouble with something on the farm. So were you driving tractors, and then did you guys have a bunch of animals on the farm? Oh yes, that was the first vehicle I ever drove was a tractor. And yeah, we did have a lot of animals. And from the time I was small, I was always trying to heal the sick animals or if there was somebody that was down and out, I used to always find that broken wing bird. So I think health care, the calling for health care was definitely part of who I was from being quite young. Shelley, after high school, why did you join the Army? You know, I grew up in very humble beginnings and my family didn't have a lot of money. And I knew that as a young person, I was living in a small town and I just wanted to see the world. I wanted to get out of that very small farming community. And now like I said, I have perspective and I'm fortunate that I come from that background. As a teenager, all I wanted to do was leave. I wanted to get the heck out of Dodge and figure out how I was going to see the world and become my own person. I knew that finding a farmer and settling down to continue that life wasn't in my future. So I decided when I was a junior in high school to join the military, that was a great option for me to go to school and get out of Iowa. So that's really why I ended up in the Army and wanting to be in health care, find some kind of health care future and career. I joined the military as a combat medic in the Army. Shelly, I heard that you were involved in a really bad, serious accident. Can you tell me about what happened? Yeah, I had left for boot camp the day after graduating from high school and I was 17 at the time. I actually celebrated my 18th birthday at boot camp doing a ton of push ups. So my 18th birthday, I will forever remember looking at my drill sergeant's combat boots doing many, many push ups. But I was in training with the Army for about six months between boot camp and my advanced training. And I came back in November of that year and my first weekend back with my unit in Iowa, I was in a really bad motor vehicle accident in the Army. I was on active duty at the time. So I was hit by a drunk driver and I ended up in really bad shape. And surprisingly, growing up on a farm and being the tomboy that I was, I'd never, ever had a broken bone, I'd never been to the hospital, I'd never had any injuries as a child. But within that 10 seconds, I was from head to toe injured. I ended up with a right knee replacement. My left arm was going to be amputated for about six months off and on. It was a very difficult time trying to save my arm. My face had multiple fractures. I was blind for a while. My left foot was crushed. So because of all the injuries, opposite arm, opposite legs, I ended up just having to be confined to a wheelchair for about two years. And yeah, just a very, very significant accident and difficult time as a teenager. It was only 18. And my family was working and everyone was busy and trying to take care of me. The military was flying me all over the country for surgeries and procedures. And it was a very, very dark time, but also I think it's a very positive experience because of that accident, I'm really the person I am today. The inspiration for what I do now is because of that experience. Well, I have to say you are one tough person and I mean, it's inspiring to see your perspective, you know, to really choose to look at things in a positive way, how it actually helped you. And in 1996, you opened Wilson Home Care. Why did you start Wilson Home Care? You know, when my family was trying to take care of me at home, it was very, very difficult for them. And I was definitely a burden having to rely on them for everything from bathing me and feeding me, dressing me, taking me to different doctor's appointments. And I was frustrated from having to be confined to a wheelchair and we're sometimes not very nice to the people that love us the most. And we're not on our best behavior with our family members. But when I would go to the doctor, you're on your best behavior and you're so nice to the staff and the nurses and everyone that's helping to care for you, but with your family, it's easy to be grumpy. And I was obviously very miserable at the time and in a lot of pain all the time. But, you know, I had a lot of a lot of time to think during my recovery. And I eventually, it was the December of 1995 that my friends, I had friends in the military that were in Hawaii that reached out to me and said, why on earth are you in Iowa? It's the dead of winter. It's freezing cold there. You must come to Hawaii and fall out a little bit and finish your recovery at Tripler Army Medical Center. And so I said, why not? And I got on a plane. Well, somebody rolled me on a plane because I was still in a wheelchair and I came to Hawaii for a short period of time to just have a little break. And then in 1996, I started Wilson Home Care. I never left Hawaii, obviously, and I reattached with the Hawaii Army National Guard to finish out my military service. But I started Wilson Home Care because of my own personal experience and knowing that if I were to have had the help that we provide to so many people in our community, it would have been such a relief for my family. And certainly for me, my experience in being cared for and healing mentally and psychologically, emotionally, it's so important that you have a support team when you're going through any kind of illness or injury. And I think having a caregiver and somebody that wasn't related to me would have been a really positive experience for me. So I started Wilson Home Care when I was 21 and I didn't know anything about business. I just knew that I was passionate about this mission and this idea of people receiving the care and help that they need in their own homes. And I thought, you know, what's the worst thing that's going to happen? I'm not going to die. And that really became my benchmark in life after surviving this near-death experience in the military. My benchmark was, you know, what's the worst thing that's going to happen? I'm not going to die. So trying new things and putting myself out there, I had nothing to lose after my experience with the accident. And now, Shelly, you have over 500 staff and I want to ask you, what character traits do you look for in hiring your staff? Oh, wow, you know, that's such an easy answer. You know, the passion to care for others, you know, people have to have the heart for what we do. It's a very emotional business that we're in and being able to love and care for those people in need that are suffering and, you know, down and out. That's the most important trait in any nurse or caregiver or anybody in healthcare for that matter. Just people that have the heart for loving and nurturing those in need. And then you opened up a beautiful building in Kailua in 2013 for your Wilson senior living. Tell me more about that facility. Yeah, you know, through the years, we've had many, many families that have come to us and requested different types of long term care models and, and long term care is not just for Kapuna. It's also for Kaking, we have, we have a children's division, we have young people that we care for, we have elderly people that we care for. But I think that it's very, very difficult for families to figure out what, you know, what the model is for them. It's so personal for each family and each individual, whether, you know, they're, they're working and a lot of sandwich generation families as well where they have small children that they're caring for and they're also caring for their parents. And so I think it's hard to figure out, you know, is it home care? Does that help to supplement services and care for your loved ones? Or is it adult daycare? Is it a senior living facility? Is it an independent living facility? There's a lot of different models that families are in need of. And we, we don't necessarily have an abundance of those resources in Hawaii. It's quite costly to do business out here and it's very costly to build homes and facilities for, for anyone, let alone a business model. So I had numerous requests through the years for families that needed 24 hour care for their loved ones. So I decided in 2007 to develop the senior living model with, with a few partners in healthcare. I don't have business partners, but the model that I, that I really was drawn to is this, this model called a purposeful life. And so building a special home for Kapuna, there's 22 private suites in the home for senior living. But it's really about having a purposeful life when our residents wake up in the morning, having fellowship and sharing time with their peers, having meals together, having activities, things to look forward to. There's, there's a lot of different parts of the formula that makes our homes so different and unique in Hawaii. But it gives people that sense of something to look forward to, like we all need to keep us going. We're all very social creatures and not just having, you know, an elderly facility, but giving, giving hope to our residents, our seniors about things that are coming, fun things that they're going to be experiencing or going through and time together. So not only did we build the bricks and mortar for our home, but also the infrastructure and the mission of our home is, is almost more important than the physical aspects of it. I like hearing all of that, Shelley. And what are you doing now to adapt and adjust during this coronavirus situation? Wow, you know, that is a, that's a loaded question because there's, I feel like 99,000 things that we've done since January. You know, we, everyone in healthcare had to start quite early in preparing our community and our businesses to be in the right place when the virus came to Hawaii. We have been literally working seven days a week, 16 hour days from, from January. But the senior living home was probably the most significant component in, in regards to seeing and hearing what the nation, all of our long-term care partners and colleagues on the mainland have experienced and many, many challenges with outbreak and loss of life across the nation. And so our team sat down and we came up with different strategies for our home care model and certainly senior living. And early on in let's say your March, we had a group of nurses and caregivers that moved into senior living and they have been living there with our residents, part of the family, and we rotate our team out every 30 days. Staff are basically living side by side with our residents and in order to keep everyone safe and make sure that we have no exposure at all. Families are visiting through the window and virtually we have a lot of different programs that we're utilizing in the home for video, you know, messages and also video calls with loved ones. And video yoga, we have video hula, all of our activities. We used to have this wonderful group of young boys from this basketball team that we've sponsored for years. They would come and play board games with our seniors on a regular basis. And now we have many, many organizations in the community that have reached out to us that are interacting and engaging. We had a group of Punahou kids that were playing these virtual games with our seniors this last week and they had a blast. So we're just, we're reinventing ourselves in some ways. The model of having that purposeful life and having things to look forward to is different. And we're finding ways to overcome the physical presence of that. And then in home care early on in February and March we gave everyone masks. All of our staff were in PPE much earlier than even recommendations from the Department of Health or CDC. But we gave masks to our staff and also our patients. We have a mask program and making sure that everyone has the proper PPE when necessary. We adapted and created a few new programs also to supplement some of the other senior programs in our community that had to close. The adult daycares all had to close. So we have an errand program with also a bath service. A lot of individuals that were going to senior daycare were receiving those types of services. So we're trying to help supplement that group. And then we also have a new program called Be Well Hawaii where we take care of COVID patients that are coming out of the hospital or people that have family members that have COVID. But it's definitely been a roller coaster for all of us in figuring out how we can safely take care of all of our staff and all of our clients and all of the families. And we've been very successful in not having any outbreak at all. Whether it's through home care or through our senior living facility. And we also have wounded warriors on all of the neighbor islands as well. And we're virtually seeing each one of those soldiers. So it's been an interesting time for sure. Shelly in my books I talk about making an impact which you're doing. I talk about passion which you have found. And I talk about creating a superior culture of excellence which you are doing. How important is it for people to really find their passion but then to also pursue their passion like you're doing. You know I think there's nothing more important. And I know that there's a lot of programs and the reality TV shows like Shark Tank where people see that and they think oh my gosh I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to start my own business. It seems so exciting and you know sometimes it might even seem glamorous and and it's really not. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work and and it's it's hard. It takes a lot of grit to be in business and to and to do what you love doing and if you're not passionate. I think you know it nothing will get you through the hard days. If you don't truly truly love and believe in what you're doing. You can't chase money that doesn't give you the sustainable future. You know it's a mental psychological emotional roller coaster that you go through in life and you have to be passionate about what you're doing we work more than we do anything else and in order to overcome the challenges. Yeah the passion is absolutely critical. I think that's the number one component for for anything any career that anyone pursues in order to be successful. You must have passion. Shelly you're also the founder of mission first responders. Tell me what that is. Yeah. You know, I also am part of an organization called the Young Presidents Organization and it's an international group of presidents that have all been successful in different industries and in different ways in life from maybe inheriting a family business or you started your own or you're working for a corporation but but all presidents and and this group has been instrumental in my career over the course of the last few years. When I was when I joined this group and and I never ever thought that I would be impacted so significantly by sharing best practices and the information in my industry with presidents from all over the globe. But this pandemic has really brought us together in a different in a different way and so having resources to personal protective equipment medical supplies is has been very difficult for everyone around the world. Whether it's a hospital, a country, a state, a city, you name it everyone is having a difficult time finding personal protective equipment. And so in talking to a lot of my associates and colleagues from around the world. I knew that Hawaii would have a difficult time in getting PPE just as everyone else has, but we were the last ones, literally on the planet to get the virus. And so all of these supplies are quite over sourced and and hard to find so I decided to start mission first responders to really educate our community on personal protective equipment and the necessity of our health care providers and our first responders police the firefighters ambulance drivers. Anyone that is in need of the PPE just to educate everyone as to what it is and and why we need it and how we need to support our our hospitals and and these very very special heroes that work in our community. And from there, it grew into a platform with flash and maleco on their TV program. And so we were able to raise funds as well to donate PPE to the various hospitals and some of our health care facilities. And I think, you know, people, you know, it's counterintuitive to think about health care right now, thinking, thinking a lot of people think that everyone's doing very well in health care because we have all these sick people. But in fact, the hospitals are really struggling, and they struggle, you know, on a on a good day. They're not all privately funded, and they're, you know, reimbursements from the federal and state governments are not 100% of what true costs are sometimes. And now a lot of people are not going to the doctor. So the elective procedures are way down. You know, they're, they've had to really, really limit the amount of people that are coming and going in different in different areas of health care, but everyone in health care is having just as hard of a time if not harder than every other industry. And in addition to these other challenges, logistically and getting people to go to the doctor and receive these services that they need, we all also have to pay for PPE. And we've all used PPE for many, many years. But now this is a different level of everyone has to have PPE on all the time. It's very expensive. It's also very difficult to get, as I mentioned, so the cost of the PPE that we've typically paid are astronomical. You know, gowns that we used to pay a few dollars for are now on the internet for $15. These are disposable gowns that, you know, you've never think that would ever, you know, you've never have to pay those those kinds of prices so I started bringing in a large supply of PPE back in January through my YPO organization. We've all helped one another to get supplies of medical equipment to different places around the world and also in the United States. We helped to fly a plane full of ventilators to New York City a few months ago and getting different access to supplies that that most people don't don't have access to just through our networks. So I've been bringing huge volumes, huge volumes of PPE into Hawaii since January and helping with some of our state and government entities and agencies as well as the healthcare facilities throughout the state and the neighbor islands we've flown medical equipment and medical supplies to all of the neighbor islands as well. So it's it's just sort of kept on growing and mission first responders and wanting our community just to know and be in the know about that turned into Be Well Hawaii, which is another company that I started for medical supplies and PPE supplies just for healthcare providers and first responders. And yeah, so it's been it's, you know, kind of grown on its own organically. Shelly, you know, it's it's amazing the huge positive impact that you are doing, you know, with our community. I want to thank you for taking time, you know, in your schedule to be on the show. I want more Shelly Wilsons in the world. Well, you know, I think everybody can make an impact. And, you know, and, you know, I'm in healthcare, and we, you know, we've been trying to help all of our friends and neighbors, but and also the business community we we have a, we have another entity through aloha mask. aloha mask.com we also are providing PPE to our business community as well and also just the general public and making sure that everyone is safe and and has their medical supplies and PPE that they need and it's non medical PPE that that we have available through aloha mask but I think it's just important that everyone knows that one person can make a difference. You don't have to have, you know, a huge group of people and it's not don't wait for everyone else to come up with the idea or take action or try to make an impact. It can just take one person that starts a movement that is going to to change someone's life. Or in this instance, I hope that we're able to save some people's lives and making sure that Hawaii has the PPE that we need. And, you know, it education is very powerful as well, making sure people know that you have to say safe we have to say vigilant. Everyone knows that our numbers are on the rise with our outbreak and it's going to be a long, it's going to be a long journey for all of us and we're fortunate that we do live in Hawaii, where people stick together and love one another but it just takes one person to make an impact and and I certainly didn't do this on my own. There are many, many people in my organization and also in the community that have supported us, our companies and certainly me through the years. It's, it's, it's definitely not a one person show but I appreciate you in helping to bring stories to the community as well and keeping us informed and, and you've had such an amazing career and thank you for your inspiration for all of us to Well, Shelly, you definitely go beyond the lines and you're, you're a definite inspiration to all of us and just wanted to thank you again for your time. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on ThinkTek Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I hope that Shelly and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.