‘Guardian angel’ businesswoman has ‘biggest heart’ of all [Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.]

Sept. 30--Deborah J. "Debbie" Johnston never set out to start and run a multimillion dollar home nursing and health care company based in Chesterfield County.

Her dream was to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a secretary.

"She was pretty and happy, and that is what I wanted to do," Johnston said about her late mother, Eunice, who worked at Lucky Strike and the Federal Aviation Administration.

"She loved people. Family and children were her world. She loved work and was offered (promotions), but if it required a move, she wasn't going to uproot her family."

Johnston, who inherited the same love for family as her mother, employs two sisters, her sister-in-law and brother in key roles at her company, Care Advantage Inc.

"It's very incestuous," Johnston jokes about Care Advantage. "Everyone is related to everyone."

That might be part true in the corporate office, a pink building off Midlothian Turnpike. But the company employs 3,000 people across Virginia, including about 1,500 in the Richmond area.

About 150 full-time employees run the business. The rest are field employees -- nurses, aides,social workers,and occupational and physical therapists -- working with patients.

Secretarial work was never meant to be for Johnston.

She had her own path to follow, and it would take her from humble beginnings -- growing up on a farm in Varina with four sisters and one brother in a one-bathroom house -- to starring on ABC's "Secret Millionaire" show last month.

The reality show is about millionaires who go incognito into poor, desolate towns where they work with charities and, at the end of the show, reveal their true identities and donate to the charities.

Johnston split $150,000 among three charities in Richmond, Calif., where the show was filmed, and set up $10,000 scholarship funds for each of two young men who touched her heart.

The show featuring Johnston aired Aug. 18. Since the filming two years ago, two other young men she met there have been shot and killed, a not uncommon fate in Richmond, Calif.

Nothing about that city in the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay area resembled the Richmond she knew and loved.

"It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life; I cried every night," she said about her one-week experience.

Johnston had a film crew and a security guard, but for all anyone in that town knew, they were filming a documentary on volunteering.

"Fear crept in when the boys told me how people were murdered," Johnston said. "They walk outside, a car drives up and the shooting begins. There were times we walked a lot, and what struck me was there were no other people on the street but us.

"Would I do it again? Probably, because if I touched one life, it was worth the journey."

Johnston loves giving back to the community. She and her company have donated more than $1 million to charities primarily in the Richmond area in the past 15 years.

"We are here; we are fully engaged in the community," said Johnston, who tithes at least 10 percent of everything she earns.

"Debbie has a history of loving service," said Joyce Fisher Pierce, minister of Unity Christ Church of Bon Air. Johnston kept alive a 4T Prosperity Program at the church, where "T" stands for the tithing of time, talent and treasure, Pierce said.

At J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, a $250,000 endowment fund established in her name in 2006 provides nursing scholarships.

Charities benefiting from her largess include Big Brother Big Sister, the American Cancer Society, the YMCA and the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

<p>The latter is close to her heart since her sister Wendy Tinsley -- Johnston's childhood soul mate -- was diagnosed with the disease at age 26.

Johnston took her younger sister, like she has the rest of her family, under her wings, setting her up in a condominium.

"Wendy is one of the most courageous people I know," Johnston said. "She is one of my greatest teachers."

Despite her desire to become a secretary, Johnston took the advice of her father. She is forever grateful for his wisdom, she says.

Richard Johnston, an electrician and a farmer, guided his oldest daughter at a young age to become a nurse.

She recalls the first toy nurse's kit she received as a child. She remembers her father telling her if she became a nurse, she could travel, join the Air Force like he did, always have a job and be able to take care of herself.

"I am so proud of my Dad," Johnston said, adding that he will be 82 in November, still drives a tractor to bushhog his farm and volunteers twice a week at Regional Memorial Hospital, pushing patients in wheelchairs at discharge.

Her parents scraped together $3,000 so she could attend nursing school at Johnston-Willis Hospital. She hated leaving home but stuck with the program and graduated from nursing school in 1974.

"I love being a nurse," Johnston said. "Even though I run a company, I am still called by family and friends to help (during medical crises). As long as there is breath in me, I will be some kind of nurse."

Johnston has handed off the day-to-day operations of Care Advantage to her sister-in-law.

Michelle Johnston, who married Johnston's brother in 2009, is the company's chief operating officer. She came to work at Care Advantage part time as a college student soon after the company was founded in 1988, answering phones, taking applications and dabbling in payroll and billing.

"We have a mom 'n pop feel to our company even though we are large," Michelle Johnston said, adding that working with relatives doesn't seem odd since it's always been that way.

The Johnston family is very tight-knit, Michelle Johnston said. Regarding her sister-in-law, she said, "Debbie is very high-energy, she always has ideas and she is very optimistic. If you tell her there is a problem, watch out. She will find a solution."

Mike Johnston, Michelle's husband, is the twin brother to Tammy Schnurbusch, who does marketing for Care Advantage.

"The business grows more and more every day," said Mike Johnston, who is in charge of human resources at the company. "It takes a lot of good employees to make it all happen."

Revenue has nearly tripled in the past five years, according to the narrative on "Secret Millionaire."

"I have huge trust in them," Johnston says about her family employees.

"There are times when everyone doesn't get along. We have to figure it out, because we are family."

Each sibling has a distinctly different personality, Johnston said. They are the rock, she said. "I am a balloon with lots of ideas floating around."

She has tried without success to persuade another sister, Susan Robertson, to work at Care Advantage as well.

"Susan has worked for (the same company) since she was 18," Johnston said. "She is the calmest person I know. Joy for her is to hang her hummingbird feeder. When I want to be calm, I hang with her."

With her sister-in-law running the business, Johnston has more latitude. Her dream now is to start a holistic center.

"Why don't we pay the doctor to keep us well?" she said. "There is a lot to be said for keeping oneself healthy."

Johnston also hopes to help solve the nation's health care problems.

The Affordable Care Act is not a silver bullet, Johnston said. While the goal of having everyone covered with insurance is admirable, a political answer is only a small part of the solution, she said.

"As an entrepreneur, I do not believe the solution will be found in the halls of Congress, but rather in a free market where people have the choice of how, when and how much to take care of themselves."

Johnston's inspiration to start a business evolved from working in the hospital and seeing patients discharged before they were ready to go home.

The change in hospital stays came in the 1980s when insurance companies began reimbursing hospitals and doctors for diagnoses, not for how long people were in the hospital.

Hospitals were paid a lump sum, as they still are today, whether a patient stayed a day or a month. Patient stays were shortened, and outpatient surgery became the norm.

Johnston saw the need for home health care.

She chose pink and green -- "healing colors" -- for Care Advantage's logo and founded it in 1988 on the premise of providing compassionate care.

The first person she called for help was her sister Jill Klinchock, who handled billing for Johnston when she ran a hospital home health care division. Klinchock is a vice president at the company.

The fledgling business started slowly with Johnston as the rainmaker, the one who had to make it happen. She recalls begging hospitals to pay her so she could pay her employees.

"My company is all about heart -- a grateful heart," she said.

The business took off, bringing in $250,000 in revenue in the first three months.

"Debbie is the epitome of an entrepreneur," said Henry R. "Chip" Hortenstine III, a certified public accountant who has worked with her for 26 years.

"She had a very good vision when she first started putting Care Advantage together," Hortenstine said. "She is truly concerned about the care of patients. And she is extremely generous."

Mandy Fowler, director of community relations for Care Advantage, said Johnston has a big heart.

"She has the biggest heart of everyone and everybody I know," Fowler said.

"She is an angel, the sweetest person I have ever met," Fowler said. "She is tough when she needs to be, but I have never seen that side of her."

Johnston's journey was not a straight shot to the top. She had setbacks, including a broken heart when her 10-year marriage to a doctor fell apart.