Janet Soderquist, who began her career working as a rehab tech specialist at Crotched Mountain Rehab Center in Greenfield in the early 1980s, launched Rehabilitation Equipment Associates out of her garage with her husband, Karl, over 40 years ago to provide mobility and positioning equipment and products.
It was not an easy endeavor in the early days of the company. Healthcare in the 1980s was in a transitional place, Soderquist says. “Some services were undefined, and funding was a bit chaotic,” she says. “Today, needs are getting paid through Medicare, which can be very complex and can’t be dealt with casually because we’re talking about people’s lives.”
The Manchester-based company has grown significantly from its humble beginnings, becoming the largest privately owned complex rehab technology provider in NH with satellite locations in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and Lewiston, Maine. It provides an extensive inventory of home medical equipment, including seat lift chairs, hospital beds, stairlifts, scooters, and bath items, as well as home modification services to help people make their homes
more accessible.
Soderquist says helping clients with their mobility and comfort has been a driving force in the work she does. She recalls a client whose mother was determined to get her son a wheelchair. He had cerebral palsy and was deaf, non-verbal, and unable to use his hands or walk, but he yearned for movement. With the support of a local machinist, Rehabilitation Equipment Associates created an interface that securely attached the child’s seating system to the base of a power wheelchair, placing the joystick on the wheelchair’s footplate, allowing him to drive the chair with his foot. “We modified what we needed to so he could drive it safely,” she says, adding she values the numerous personal relationships with clients who received assistance as children and remain customers as adults.
Rehabilitation Equipment Associates also has a homecare division that works with local hospitals and a HUBSCRUB cleaning division that develops and sells cleaning machines, designed by Karl, that uses UV light to clean and disinfect patient care equipment, including wheelchairs.
The company, which has 41 employees, is a true family affair. The Soderquists’ daughter leads a satellite office in Haverhill that works with people who have muscular dystrophy and a son in Florida helps run the business remotely.
To learn more about these winning companies and celebrate their success with them, join us at the Business of the Year Awards celebration to be held on June 6, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the DoubleTree by Hilton Manchester Downtown Hotel. For more information or to purchase tickets or tables, visit BusinessNHmagazine.com.
