Ohana History

Hello. Hi, everyone. This is Mary Koska, owner and founder of Ohana OT. And today is May 19, 2017. So if you're watching this years from now, you'll know how to add some years to the dates I'm going to tell you. So I am right now in one of my favorite places. I'm on the north end of Lake Wenatchee and up by Glacier Peak. The peaks aren't really showing up in the video very well, though. But anyway, just been out for a good paddle and I do some of my best thinking when I'm out on the water and my kayak's turning. So I'm just gonna fix it here. So what I wanted to do is tell you all the story of Ohana so that you all know the history of how we got to where we are now. And to start, what you need to do is go on the Ohana OT website and go to blogs and read the tribute that I wrote to my dad. And it's really to my mom and my dad and my sister. It's really important that you know that, know my background and know that story. So first step is go there. Now fast forward to before I even went to school to become an ot. I had a pretty entrepreneurial spirit. My family's pretty entrepreneurial, and I knew someday I would have my own business. I just knew that right from the start. So the seed was already there. And then I went to school, Kalamazoo, Michigan, and got my bachelor's in ot. Back then, very rare to have a master's degree. And so back in the good old days, it was a lot easier to get into school and get a degree and get going to work as a therapist. It's awfully competitive right now. So went to school, became ot, wanted to live in the Pacific Northwest. Originally I had been. Originally I was from California until I was 10. And then elementary. The rest, elementary school through high school was in Illinois. Illinois, in a suburb of Chicago. And then I went to school in Michigan. So then we wanted to live somewhere really beautiful. So we decided on the Pacific Northwest and the Rehab Cascade Medical center in Leavenworth had a position open. So that was my first job. And then. And then I went on, worked there for a couple years. Then I was a travel therapist and worked in. Oh, gosh, I think it was like nine or 13. I think it was nine different states in a matter of under two years. I did a lot of traveling, learned a lot from my hungry mind. So that was a really good experience. Got some pediatric experience there Came back, went to work for the education Service District. So I worked. I drove a thousand miles a week for a number of years and went to Grand Coulee and Naspelum and OMAC and just. And everything in between and consulted and worked in the school districts with the kids. And then in 95, when I was pregnant with Lukash, who is now 20, then I got to work for two miles from my house for Cascade School District. And so I did that for 12 years. So, you know, lots of pediatric experience. I was really happy in that job. And then I outgrew it and was ready to do some. Do something more interesting and was pretty much thinking private practice at that point. Formed the LLC in 2008 and then. But I was really happy. I started working for the Birth to three center, the pediatric therapy center in Wenatchee, and doing home visits with the little babies and toddlers and loved it. So then I was like, oh, why do all that work? So I didn't move forward with the private practice at that point. And then they suddenly closed. And so that was kind of the kick in the butt I needed to get it going. But I also had to get back to making some money right away. So I worked. I went to work at a skilled nursing facility for a couple years as I built the private practice slowly. So what I would do is I would do home visits in the morning before and after work, and then work at the skilled nursing facility. And it had been 17 years since I did that. So that. That was surprisingly very easy. I was really intimidated, but it really hadn't changed much in 17 years, which kind of surprised me. So then I loved working with kids. Karine Sweet Renee was my first client because I was working with her when the Birth to three center closed. And so you'll see a lot of pictures of her. Her mom was a photographer and took a lot of pictures kind of as a trade until I was able to bill for services. So then we grew and grew and then I, after, I think about maybe two years, I was at the point where I could not work for anybody else. At one point I was actually doing seven different jobs because I really wasn't sure where all this was gonna go. So I was doing functional capacity evals for Dr. Latimer, working for Highline, Colonial Vista and Cashmere Convalescent, and teaching karate, which I still do now I was. I also had a gig with Rehab Without Walls, with a home visit with a gentleman who had Guillain Barre syndrome and Ohana. And I forget what else I was doing. But at one point, there was like seven different things because I was really kind of dabbling, just kind of see where all this was gonna go. But the private practice part took off, and within two years, I was able to support my family. Just me doing the home visits, and that was great. And then I moved up into having a treatment room in my home, which is way up above Leavenworth, and I have to snowmobile there to get there in the winter. And literally, people were coming up to two hours away, even in the winter, getting snowmobiled up to my house, which I think the kids liked anyway. But it was crazy. But after that, after doing that for about six months or so, I thought, yeah, people are willing to come to Leavenworth. So. So then I opened the clinic that's in Leavenworth, which is right downtown, right behind the visitor center. So this is 2017. That one I opened and I opened six years ago. Six years ago March. And again, people were coming from as far as Tenasket, which is even more than two hours. So it was really successful. Again, it was all just me at that point. And then I hired Miss Emily, my friend, to be receptionist. So it was the two of us for a while. And I can remember the filing cabinet was about one drawer half full. I can remember that when I had Tracy, my student. So think about that, how much it's grown. So then four years ago, I opened the clinic in Wenatchee and. And just exploded. Grew really fast and so really learned a lot very quickly about everything. So still learning. So grew very quickly. Adding therapists, adding OTs, adding CODAs, adding support staff, et cetera, et cetera. Now there's about 10 of us between our support staff and, oh, the other place I was working was Cashmere School District. I had a contract with them for a couple days a week. And so I still have that. Mary Matson does it. And I just go up there two hours a week to supervisor. So that was one of the other many jobs I was doing at that time. So really working my tail off. And so. So she's. She's one of the five right now. There's five of us. So there's. There's Sandy's 30 hours, Katie's 40 hours. I treat 20 and do admin, truly about 40 hours, technically. And Mindy is full time as well. And Mary Matson is two and a half days up in. Up in Levin. I mean, up in Kashmir. And she used to have another day down in the clinic as well, so. And, oh, I Don't think I said Katie. And Katie's full time, my ot. So there's five of us clinicians and then we have five, five support staff as well. And we've had a lot of students through all of this too. So that's been a whole other piece that we've done that. So fast forward to today. I just really wanted to give people some background on how it started and how we got to this point. And we are currently serving about one. I think we kind of average maybe about 115 kids a week that we're serving. Add the 15 to 20 plus 15 to 20 in cashmere. So we're helping a lot of kids. And my vision, my dream is to help as many as possible worldwide. And so now I'm offering Skype. I haven't had our first Skype customer yet, but hopefully soon and some online classes and that sort of thing. So Skype hopefully help improve our revenue stream. Now, financially, I wanted to share this part with you as well because it's a big thing. So through all of this I've accumulated a lot of debt. So to accomplish all this, the most the bank helped me with was about 20,000. So I ended up cashing out 100,000 in my retirement, borrowed 40 against my husband's retirement, got the $20,000 loan, racked up about 40,000 on my credit cards and slowly chipping away at it, but haven't really gotten very far with that yet. So we just have been at the point where we just kind of make it every month but very soon. Our mission, our goal is to have a good few months of reserve of expenses in the bank and pay myself back, get all that paid down and it's all doable. We're gonna do it. We've been doing a lot of things to figure out what works best to make, to make enough money so that we're financially really healthy and everybody's amazing working really hard to figure that out. We've all, we've tried lots of different things right now. The thing that's really been growing really fast since January, this is May has been our laser. It's been remarkable. And we had our first kiddo that has gone through the fast track program where he actually did it before getting evaluated in OT because we have such a big wait list right now and he wasn't wearing socks or underwear or jeans and having like two hour meltdowns every day. And when he came in for the eval, he was already wearing jeans, socks, underwear and down to every other day. Half Hour, which is just blew me away. So I know that our fast track program is going to be just amazing because families will be able to get services right away. The kids, their reflexes, a lot of them will be well on their way to being integrated if not having a lot of them integrated. And so our therapy is going to just take off and we'll be able to get done faster, which means we'll be able to help more kids. And it's really. It's all pretty freaking exciting. I'm really proud of all of us. And so I just wanted, you know, we have new people coming on. Jennifer's starting next week. You'll be watching this, Jennifer. And this video will live on for years to come. And so just want us to remember where we started and where we're going. And the blood, sweat and tears and money that I have invested into this. So it's really important to me that everybody has that perspective and understands to never waste time, to not have idle time. There's always something to do to make ohana a better place. I want everybody to care about Ohana as much as I do. It's my baby. It's my baby. And here I am on the lake, but I'm thinking about my baby. So that's what mamas do. And I have a big dream of being able to have ohana function without my direct hand in it, that you guys can function independently. And that will free me up to do some pretty extraordinary things. Free me up to travel, to go to some third world countries and do some special work there and just be able to retire at some point. I'm 52 now, so I'm thinking ahead. And I just. When I. James Cohen, my mentor with Angie Free four years ago, when he asked me, well, what is it you want to accomplish? And I told him just what I just told you now he says, well, then you got to open a clinic up in Wenatchee. And at that point, I was two years into the Leavenworth one, and I thought, and I already knew I had already spent like 40,000 and maxed out my credit cards. And I'm thinking how I have no idea how to do that. And I actually did it and don't know how I did it other than over time. I like, you know, I told you how I did it, but at the time I was like. Was like jumping off a cliff. I had no idea how I was gonna do it, but I knew what I wanted to accomplish. And so I just did it. And we're doing it and I'm proud of us. And I love you all. So I. I also have the vision of being more of a mentor and being able to. I love treating. You know, it's the best. I love treating. But owning a clinic, you got to be freed up to do other things. And so my. My dream is, to my hands on, to be more with you guys, mentoring you, teaching you what the 30 years of knowledge that's in my brain, passing it on. And so that's my vision. My dream is to get freed up so that I can do that. So we're doing it. Things are good. Love you all. Aloha.