Occasionally we hear stories of the American spirit – of individuals who grow from humble beginnings and strive to make a difference in the world through old-fashioned hard work, sacrifice, and commitment to serving others. Their achievements are significant not just for the positive impact that has been made on the lives of others, but also because of what these individuals had to overcome in order to make such an impact.
Rebecca Bomann is Founder and CEO of SASH, a Seattle-based company that assists seniors and their families through their home sale with innovative services. SASH is unique in its blend of many industries. It is a compassionate, experienced elder care service.
Daily, it draws on the problem-solving resources of social work. Yet its operations exist in the trenches of complex real estate transactions, helping elderly homeowners through the overwhelming steps of their home sale.
The company’s growth path demonstrates creative, bootstrapping entrepreneurship as it has developed and expanded through tough economic times. Certainly, it is this uncommon blend of many different arenas that allows SASH to provide its innovative home sale services to clients. But the business model is also a reflection of Rebecca’s background – in senior care, social work, real estate, and entrepreneurship.
At the age of twelve, Rebecca began her path in senior care by working for an elderly couple in her neighborhood. She cleaned, cooked, and did landscaping for them a few hours each month. The woman was bedridden, and her husband was her full-time caregiver for over two decades. The years that Rebecca worked for this couple gave her a close understanding of the daily struggles of senior homeowners and the challenges of aging.
This empathy further developed when, at the age of twenty-five, Rebecca helped her own 82-year old grandfather sell his home and move. He came to live with Rebecca and her husband, and she provided daily care for him for almost a year and a half. The experience of helping him through his difficult home sale, and then being his caregiver until two weeks before his passing, influenced Rebecca tremendously.
This would one day shape the philosophies of SASH.
Her dedication to social work has led Rebecca into a wide range of experiences. She has lived and worked in the ghettos of Bogotá, Colombia, and has served recovering narcotic addicts in a shelter in East Harlem, New York. Rebecca volunteered as a hospital advocate for rape victims in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and has worked with battered women in both Delaware and Washington State. She worked with homeless families in Seattle, and helped a homeless teen mother get off the street, find employment, achieve her GED, and graduate from technical school.
It was not until her two sons were in preschool that Rebecca decided to go into real estate investment. This was an opportunity to work with her hands and bring her boys along for the experience. The vision of SASH, and helping seniors through their home sale, was developed during these years of real estate work. Rebecca met many senior homeowners who were overwhelmed by the process of fixing up their home to sell it, and she realized that there was no other option for them, no simpler alternative. However, the months and years of cleaning, painting, managing subcontractors, landscaping, staging, remodeling, and selling homes provided Rebecca with invaluable hands-on experience.
What does it take to turn a house in any condition into a sparkling, move-in ready home? Rebecca is a CEO of a company that is always working on remodels of seniors’ homes, but she herself wore Carhartts for years, crawling under homes, hauling garbage, clearing blackberry bushes, and staging each home for sale.
Entrepreneurship came to Rebecca initially out of necessity. As a child, Rebecca began to earn money doing landscape work for neighbors, and got a newspaper route at the age of eleven. By age thirteen, she was working enough hours to support her financial needs, by babysitting, cleaning houses, and taking on odd jobs. Maintaining part-time to full-time hours all through her teen years, Rebecca learned determination, sacrifice, and the importance of every dollar. While attending Hamilton College in New York, Rebecca washed dishes, waited tables, and cleaned houses until the week of graduation, paying her way until she turned in the last tuition check.
With the responsibility of supporting herself since her early teens, the lessons of entrepreneurship became clear: Above-and-beyond service creates value for customers that keeps them coming back. Showing up and hustling is critical. Excellence sets you apart from the rest. Watch every dollar. Treat all team members with respect and kindness, no matter what their position is. Honor commitments. Earn trust and keep it.
Try new ideas, even risky ones. They just might work.
Rebecca Bomann is most proud of her two sons, and is particularly delighted to spend time with her husband of fifteen years. She enjoys good business books, soccer, any coffee with caffeine, and moving drama films. She looks forward to the day when all of SASH’s services are available to seniors across the country, and SASH will no longer have to turn seniors away who call for help through their home sale.
SASH embodies the American spirit of discovering a need in the market and creating a solution for it with vision, innovation, and determination. What Rebecca Bomann and the incredible SASH team have overcome to build SASH into a great company will someday fill a book. And as seniors and their families continue to send in outstanding evaluations, SASH continues to go above and beyond.