West Bend Daily News: GrandCare receives $200K county loan

Company offers health care, technology

By DAVE RANK

A $200,000 county low interest loan was approved for GrandCare Systems LLC, a growing technology company in West Bend, through the Economic Development Washington County, the EDWC announced Monday.

GrandCare is rapidly expanding sales of its digital health monitoring and socializing technology for the elderly both domestically and internationally, GrandCare co-founder and CEO Charlie Hillman said.

GrandCare Systems combines digital health assessment, biometric readings, daily living activity sensing, medication management, smart home automation, video chat and virtual touch-based communications technology for the private home market since 2006.

“Home health care is a growing segment of the global economy,” EDWC Executive Director Christian Tscheschlok said. “We are excited to support the growth of a local company that offers significant potential to elevate our economy through its noteworthy leadership in that expanding market.”

Hillman’s wife, Gaytha Traynor, co-founded GrandCare and is the company’s chief operating officer.

In part, the company’s current expansion is due to the the Community Development Block Grant loan from the EDWC, Hillman said.

GrandCare now is available for retail purchase throughout the United States, Bermuda, New Zealand, Australia and [soon] the United Kingdom, Laura Mitchell, vice president of business development, said.

The daughter of Hillman and Traynor, Mitchell has been a part of GrandCare since its founding. “It started with just four of us in 2005,” Mitchell said. “We now have 18 employees.”

In January, GrandCare announced it had an exclusive contract to provide technology to the largest home health care provider in the United Kingdom, Mitchell said.

“It’s an exciting time for GrandCare and the ‘aging in place’ technology industry,” Hillman said. “The vision that the EDWC has shown will not only help build up our team to support our large contracts, but also will showcase that Washington County is a pioneer in the Health Information Technology space.”

The loan will help GrandCare expand its staff, Mitchell said, including finding a new CEO to step in for Hillman.

“Charlie has been the vision of GrandCare and he wants to remain the visionary,” Mitchell said. Hillman and Nick Mitchell, vice president of product development, built GrandCare’s products from scratch, Laura Mitchell said. “He (Hillman) wants to stay in development.”

Nick and Laura Mitchell are married.

“We are considered the pioneer in the industry,” she said. “We have that credibility.”

GrandCare’s largest competitor is a partnership formed by General Electric and Intel, she said.

The company is also preparing to launch its own e-commerce online site to sell its products directly to consumers, Laura Mitchell said.

GrandCare is located at 327 N. Main St., Lower Riverside. For more information, visit www.grandcare. com or call 338-6147.