nwasianweekly.com
Sept. 23, 2006

Lea Armstrong founded Armstrong In-Home Care in 1993. It is now the largest home-care agency in the Puget Sound, with 10 branches offices and more than 2,000 employees.

By Lee Bedard
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

Ask Lea Armstrong how many companies she has and she hesitates.

“I have to ask my lawyer,” the Korean American replies.

In 1993, she started her own business, Armstrong In-Home Care, which provides personal care services for the elderly, disabled and seriously injured in their homes. A sister organization, Armstrong UniCare LLC, founded in 2003, offers similar services to private-pay clients. Both are now owned by ResCare Inc., a national firm. The two do business as Res-Care Washington Inc. dba Armstrong In-Home Care. Armstrong continues as its executive director.

Today, the company is the largest home-care agency in the Puget Sound, with 10 branch offices in Western Washington. The company has more than 2,000 employees and serves more than 2,500 people in Pierce, King, Snohomish, Thurston, Lewis and Mason counties. Its revenue in 2005 was $25 million; this year, the company is on target to make more than $30 million.

Ever restless to do something new, Armstrong has expanded into low-income housing for seniors. Her new 100-unit apartment project in Kent is under construction and will offer affordable rents. She has purchased land in Federal Way for a similar project and envisions others in Snohomish and Pierce counties.

What drives Armstrong is the ability to fulfill community demands.
“I always try to meet needs. You have to know what people’s needs are,” she says.

Armstrong’s involvement with what became the Korean Women’s Association began in 1975 when she was membership chairperson of Lakewood First Baptist Church’s Korean Mission. Charged with increasing membership in the Mission, she heard about a social club of Korean women married to returned U.S. servicemen. From these contacts Armstrong was instrumental in forming the Korean Women’s Association, serving several terms as its president.

In 1994, she left the association to focus on her in-home care business.

Armstrong says making money has been relatively easy for her, at least since the start-up days of her business.

She finds that giving it away is actually tougher, because of the need to select recipients carefully and fairly. But she believes that giving back is essential.

“If you do not give back some of the money that God has given to you, maybe He will not entrust any more to you,” she explains.

Her list of community activities is lengthy and includes serving on former Gov. Dixie Lee Ray’s Commission on Asian American Affairs and being a board member of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce. She founded and is head of the LASCO Foundation, which provides 12 college scholarships a year to single parents.

For Armstrong, her community service and business ventures are wrapped into one. She believes that an essential part of her business philosophy is to “care for the employees and clients as family members and return a large portion back into the community to help more people.”

For more information, visit www.armstronghomecare.com.

Lee Bedard can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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