Ruse on the Loose: Denville man's livery service goes beyond the ride.
Working for a livery company, Ralph Hansen noticed he was getting many calls from senior passengers looking for transportation to medical appointments. As he helped these clients to and from their destinations, he began to realize just how much they really needed his help.
"These guys needed assistance, they needed help, they needed encouragement. I'm a very strong relationship person and I have a very strong customer service ethic about me, so a combination of all those things just made me say, I really love this, I really love helping people," said Hansen, who lives in Denville with his wife Lois.
"I told my boss, you know, we're not even marketing this and it's coming to us. This could be a really good thing. But he's had a strong livery service for a lot of years in Morris Township and just didn't see the need to go in that direction. So I just put it in the back of my head and a couple of years later here I am in business."
Hansen is the founder and owner of The Caring Coach, a transportation and livery service based out of northern New Jersey which recently celebrated their third anniversary. The on-call service company not only does all the driving, they give each client arm-in-arm, door-to-door help, providing the most important element the client and their family need: peace of mind.
"When we go in, we help them with hat, coat and gloves, make sure they have their keys, make sure they have their list of medications for the doctor. All those little things that are something that an adult caregiver would do. I tell people, we work exactly the way you would. In other words, you would do all those things but if you can't, we're here to do that," said Hansen, 72, who has three children and eight grandchildren.
"If people need respite, mom had one appointment a month and now she's got three, and I have a job outside the home, I still have two teenage kids, I'm going crazy. My best client is an adult caregiver that's pulling their hair out because it's getting to be too much. That's the service that we offer."
As the population has gotten older with people living longer, the need for transportation to hospitals, doctor's appointments, surgery centers, physical therapy or treatment centers has grown, especially when family members are not close and unavailable to help out.
"The statistic that blew me away, was 70,000 Americans a week turn age 65 and that's going to go on for the next 15 years or so. So what's happening is we have an epidemic on our hands of people that need assistance. On the other side of the coin, people are living longer. I have 85, 90, 95-year-old people that I take around," Hansen said.
"And these little buses, the ones subsidized by county, by town, a lot of those services are drying up. The people that I work with, can't use those. The bus will sit at the curb and toot the horn and wait for this person to come. Here she is standing on her stoop, scared to death, maybe the steps are a little slippery or they just need that help. They need the arm-in-arm, door-to-door help. It's a day of fear going out anywhere. It's very hard, very hard for them."
Besides driving, Hansen will give an assessment of the person for a family member who is many times thousands of miles away. Although he's unable to tell them what the doctor said, he's able to give them a detailed judgment of what he sees, how the loved one is getting around or if he feels their abilities have diminished.
"You get a call from California, from Florida, I have no one, 'I need to get mom to the doctor, can you help me?' And what I do is I give them a full report. If I take mom, I'll tell them blow-by-blow what happened and give my opinion. 'Looks like mom is struggling in this area, you might want to look into that,'" Hansen said.
"Occasionally you'll have situations where a facility will say, we're trying to get hold of her and she doesn't answer her phone, that kind of thing. I tell people that so they know what's going on. That's the kind of information I like to give them so they have peace of mind. It's almost like they were here but they're not. I'm like an extra family member."
Because The Caring Coach is based out of Hansen's Denville home, it's easy for him to reach most areas of northern New Jersey including Morris, Warren, Essex and Union counties. But he's willing to go almost anywhere to help someone reach their destination. He would also like to get involved in handicapped transportation in the near future.
"I absolutely love what I do. It was one of the first things I ever did that I enjoyed. When a customer sees you, they're happy because they know we're going to take care of them. And that response has been unbelievable. I get people that come back, come back and come back because they know they can trust what I do."
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