Abby Woodford:

Just looking back over the last 33 and a half years, where we started the last even five years, how much we’ve grown, I think for me it’s important as the next generation once Paul retires fully and my parents are no longer actively in the business in the day-to-day, that for us is really just keeping that family feel because we want to make sure that everybody, even people on our team, feel that they’re a part of our family.

Stephanie Larscheid:

Welcome to Family Business Connection, a podcast that uncovers the stories behind family businesses where business leaders share how they navigate the unique challenges of working with loved ones while building a lasting family legacy. I’m your host, Stephanie Larscheid of Prairie Family Business Association. In today’s episode, we’ll hear from Abby Woodford, one of the family owners of Interim HealthCare, a business founded by her parents in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 1991. Starting with just a single employee, the business has since grown into a thriving operation with over 450 field staff across multiple locations, providing everything from non-medical home care to nursing services for clients ranging from newborns to a remarkable 109 years old.

Abby shares how she and her sisters grew up in the business from cleaning bathrooms as kids to taking on leadership roles as adults. She opens up about the transformative impact of the Prairie Family Business Association, particularly a family retreat in 2021 that helped them define their core values and implement the operating system. Abby also dives into the importance of family meetings, balancing work and personal life, and fostering a family-like culture for their team. Our conversation starts with Abby taking us back to the early days, explaining how Interim HealthCare became a true family affair with each family member finding their way back to the business after exploring their own paths.

Abby Woodford:

Interim HealthCare, my parents, Paul and Lori Millman, opened the doors of our Sioux Falls office in December of 1991. And since then we have grown to various locations as well. With Interim HealthCare we do everything from non-medical, so help with bathing, dressing, light housekeeping, meal prep, taking our clients to appointments, grocery shopping, the full spectrum of those needs, all the way up to nursing care as well. Our population ranges from pediatrics to geriatrics, so our youngest client at any given time could be as little as … We’ve had newborn babies all the way up to our last client. Our oldest client was … Excuse me, 109 years old and passed away just last year. But that’s the oldest that we’ve ever cared for at Interim HealthCare.

Involved in the business are my parents, Paul and Lori Millman, my sisters. I have two sisters. They’re both younger than me. Emily is involved in the business and the day-to-day operations as our social media specialist and also part owner as of January of 2025. My middle sister, Jennalee, she is not actively involved in the day-to-day as she’s a teacher in the Sioux Falls but her husband Lee is actively a part of our business and has been for the last six years and does our marketing, sales all the things. And Jenna Lee is also a part owner as well. So ownership makeup is myself, my parents, and my two younger sisters.

Stephanie Larscheid:

That’s great. Generation one, generation two fully represented there, and that’s nuclear family right there. Now you’ve really grown. You have a few locations. Talk about that too.

Abby Woodford:

Yeah. So we started in 1991 in Sioux Falls, and then in 2017 when I got married and moved to the Brookings area, we opened an office in Brookings, South Dakota. And then in 2021 we started talking about North Dakota, going straight up the I-90 … Or excuse me, the I-29 corridor and expanded into Fargo a few years ago. And so essentially in North Dakota, we service the whole state in regards to staffing as well, which I forgot to mention, but we also do supplemental staffing in facilities across South Dakota, Northwestern Iowa, Southwest Minnesota. I got to get all my geographics here. And then the whole state of North Dakota as well.

Stephanie Larscheid:

Big footprint.

Abby Woodford:

Yes.

Stephanie Larscheid:

How many employees are you at?

Abby Woodford:

At any given time in our fields across all the locations we have about 450 field staff and then all three offices make up about 22 staff members.

Stephanie Larscheid:

Okay. Great. Why are you passionate about Interim HealthCare? Why are you spending your days … Why did you enter ownership?

Abby Woodford:

Yes. So like my sisters and I always talk, we’ve been involved in this business since day one. In 1991 we were just little girls, but it was always important to us and my parents would bring us to the office. We’d have to clean the bathrooms and clean the office every weekend and we’d leave little love notes for the office staff because that’s just what little girls do and draw them pictures and such. So we were always involved in some regards. It truly was a family business from the beginning, even though my parents back when they started had some outside ownership as well for other owners who weren’t family. And so from 1991 on, it’s really just grown from cleaning bathrooms to working summer breaks to the holidays from school. It always involved going into the office. When someone would just up and quit in the office … I still remember many, many of spring breaks I never made any plans because I would just bank on my mom or dad calling me and saying, “So-and-so is no longer with us,” or, “So-and-so had to leave. So when can you be here? When’s your last final?” So it was just a standing joke that I never went anywhere for spring break because I was always needed at the office.

But truly for me, that’s just who I was, and I didn’t feel like I was giving up anything because I just loved being a part of it. I worked as a home health aide doing overnight shifts at one of our private pay clients in Sioux Falls. So I would work an overnight shift, go home quick, take a 45-minute little cat nap and then get up, shower and go to school in high school. So that’s just what I did. It was always just a part of me. So I always knew I wanted to actively be working in the business and a full-time status, and our director of operations at the time in 2008 came to me and said, “Hey, we’ve got this huge opportunity. I would love for you to be a part of it.” So she hired me. Unbeknownst to my parents, she went back and said, “Oh, by the way, I met with Abby and I’ve hired her to come join our team.” And that was in 2008. And I’ve held many positions throughout the last almost 17 years. Done it all except for the nursing piece, which I’m not a nurse, but I’ve done everything besides that.

And really just knowing that we’re helping people stay in their homes as long as possible, as long as it’s safe for them, and keeping them at home, working alongside hospice companies to provide that care at end of life too, is just really something special. Then I became an owner in 2015. So when the opportunity presented itself, I didn’t even think twice about it. I knew that that’s where I wanted to be, and I had no plans of leaving. So it just evolved and here we are today.

Stephanie Larscheid:

It’s certainly part of your identity and have been for many, many years of your life. That’s very evident.

Abby Woodford:

Yes. Thank you.

Stephanie Larscheid:

You talk often about being woman owned, veteran owned, locally owned. What does that mean to you and your marketing and how you present the business?

Abby Woodford:

Yeah. So my brother-in-law Lee has been doing our marketing the last few years. He’d be out talking to people and that differentiator. Like what makes Interim HealthCare different from other agencies in town and how can we present that? And he started saying, “Well, we’re veteran owned, women owned, family owned,” and now it’s added on like we’re locally owned because important to people too these days. And so it just became part of his tagline. So we’ve adopted that as our own. That’s who we are. We use it in our marketing. People love that. We serve a lot of veterans in the area, and that’s something truly passionate on our end because my dad was a Navy is a Navy veteran. And so with that, that’s a huge piece of us having my mom and myself and then my sisters being that woman piece, and then just the family business. People in the Midwest … Other places too, but especially in the Midwest, we find that that’s really that connection point for people is knowing that we’re locally owned, we’re here. We’ve always been locally owned and operated. And what does that look like for the future? It’s super exciting as I look at my kids and my nieces and nephews … Sorry, carrying on that legacy that our parents have started.

Stephanie Larscheid:

Yeah. Family business, it is a big deal. It’s who you are, it’s your heart and soul, and it’s something that you’re building up for the future that it lives on more than today and that’s what makes family business so special. It’s not just something that is dispensable that can go away. It’s something that you’re trying to make last and you make a great impact on people, including your own family as the third generation is growing up. Very young now.

Abby Woodford:

Yes.

Stephanie Larscheid:

You wear a lot of hats. You have all these locations, you’re leading the business, you’re leading your own family. You have young children. Talk about how you handle all of that.

Abby Woodford:

Yeah. So that’s been one piece I think probably I’ve struggled the most with is just I’ve always feel like I’ve been a person to be able to balance it all and get it all done no matter what. If that meant working late hours, going in early. There was one summer where my sister Jennalee and I, I think we ate breakfast, lunch, and supper at the office because we had turnover and it just needed to be done. Our census was really high and so that’s just what we did. However, when you have a spouse and young children at home, you have to factor that in too. I’m very lucky that I have such a supportive husband. He knows that this is our future, and so he’s very supportive in that. But I have struggled with that. But ultimately, family comes first and being in a family business for us is really just looking to different avenues. I’ve really learned to delegate and elevate. I’m working really hard on that this year. I can’t do it all, even though sometimes I think I can. But really just being humble and asking for help, and that’s not a bad thing. But knowing that we have something truly special here at Interim HealthCare and how can we carry that on for future generations? So yeah.

Stephanie Larscheid:

It’s always a work in progress, that’s for sure. And with family business, you surround yourself with a really vital support system, which happens at work, but I know that you’ve made that happen at home as well to make sure you have that support around you and your spouse and your children takes a village.

Abby Woodford:

Yes.

Stephanie Larscheid:

And it makes everyone a little more resilient when the village is all involved as well.

Abby Woodford:

Absolutely.

Stephanie Larscheid:

When you talked about delegate and elevate, that’s a tool that you’ve developed over some years of working on your business operations. That takes you back to a family business retreat that your family participated in a few years ago where you did some core value discussion and revamping of some core values as next-gens. From my perspective, looking in, that was a really transformative process for all of you because it was a time that the core values weren’t being pushed down from G-1 to G-2, but it was, Hey, we as G-2, we want to really define who we are, what we stand for, how we do business, and we’re going to put our mark on that. And you did. Talk about that experience starting with core value and where that has evolved to.

Abby Woodford:

Yeah. You know Stephanie, that Paul really drug his feet when you reached out about joining the family retreat back in 2021. And a lot of factors, and I look back now and I think the whole family agrees. I am so thankful that we took the plunge and went there. It truly for us was the time to have those hard conversations of people that were involved in the business at the time and really just what does that look like? We had our core values and they were from our franchisor, which that’s the beauty of our business where we have the backing of a franchisor, but we can make it our own. And so we hadn’t done that though. And so really working with our facilitator at that retreat. And what that looks like, these core values, I honestly didn’t even know half of them. And it was in our orientation handbook, but we probably skimmed over it. And so now our core values actually mean something to us, and all of our staff have adopted it. Our field staff, it’s on the back of everybody’s name badge, so they’re aware. We hire, fire, retain and reward staff around our core values.

So for us RISE is the acronym we came up with. It’s accountability, respect, integrity, stewardship and empathy. And so those five to us are so important. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t hear someone talk about it in the office. We have the signs posted in our orientation rooms at each location. And so really for us, that Prairie Family Business Retreat was transformational for our business and the outlook. We weren’t having those really in-depth conversations about the succession of Interim HealthCare. We knew mom and dad would retire someday and that would be that, and we would keep moving forward, but what that truly looked like, we didn’t know. And so for us over the last four and a half years, it’s been just so impactful to know that we have a plan, we have a direction. So with that retreat and then implementing the EOS has been just life-changing for us. And so looking back, I don’t know where we would be and I don’t know that I want to know where we would be if we hadn’t taken the plunge and gone to that retreat. So I’m just so grateful that we had that opportunity, and I encourage everybody that’s in Prairie Family Business to go to that at some point because you’re there, you can’t leave, and you have those difficult conversations, which aren’t easy, but they’re so important in a family business especially.

Stephanie Larscheid:

Yes. Very much. And it really can open up the lines of communication and break down some barriers. When you are away from business and family for three days, you have no other commitments but talking to each other, working through obstacles, talking about the opportunities, the dreams, what might be holding you back. And those three days, I know you treasure as a family and as a business. So since then you’ve evolved to using the entrepreneurial operating system, EOS, and you continue to operate in that way with quarterly meetings, with annual planning sessions, with using tools like delegate and elevate and rewarding and retaining and firing around core values. Those are huge principles that when businesses are in their infancy stage and then they start to experience some growth, having those tools available can be so essential to taking you to that next level of business, which is what you’re experiencing at Interim HealthCare.

Abby Woodford:

Yes.

Stephanie Larscheid:

You surround yourself with peers who are also in family business and who are also working with siblings and parents and key non-family employees. Talk about that peer group experience, how that has been for you.

Abby Woodford:

So I joined a peer group a few years ago, and for me, I look forward to our meetings every other month. It’s just so encouraging to be around like-minded people. And not that we all don’t have issues and problems that come up, but that’s our time to really dive in and talk about, well, what works for you? What have you experienced? Excuse me. And really just having that open communication amongst us and people that are in the thick of it of the family business, because it is. Family business is so unique and it’s hard. It is so hard at times. And so having that to bounce something off. We have a group chat message that send out a text like, “Hey, I just read this book. I recommend it to everybody.” Great. Or someone in our group had a baby. “Hey, congratulations.” Just that not only business, but also that personal relationship with them. It’s so encouraging to me to go there and just have that wealth of knowledge. People that have been doing this longer than I have. Some of them aren’t owners, but they’re married to owners, so how can I love their perspective? Because now I see what my brother’s in law, when they’re looking at things as far as the family business goes. So it has been … I just love it. I think it’s so valuable. And my time is always well spent with my peer group.

Stephanie Larscheid:

You’re not alone. You’re not in isolation trying to lead a business alongside your family. There are other people just like you who are going through the emotions and the decisions that you are. And just to know, hey, we can support each other through this is so huge. You’ve also been able to witness your dad being part of a peer group and your sister being part of a peer group. What have your observations been from seeing their experiences with peer group and what they’ve brought back to the family and business?

Abby Woodford:

Yeah. My dad is in a group like the transitional, I think they call it group. For him it’s, they’re all in that getting towards the end closer to retirement. And so it’s fun to see him interact with people. Have that, here’s what we’re experiencing passing it on to Gen-2 or Gen-3 or however it goes. And so that’s been fun to see. He enjoys going to his meetings. And my sister, I’ve noticed with her … I don’t obviously know what goes on in their meetings, but with the kids group, I just noticed her confidence really blossom from that and knowing that she has a voice and she can speak up at our meetings and not feel like that … Before this January, she wasn’t an owner, but she still has a voice. Everybody in the family has a voice. And that’s important to us too, is really just making sure that everybody feels heard. Not that we’re always going to agree on the same thing, but we never want to leave a family meeting with anything unsaid. And so I’ve noticed my sister is more vocal in a very respectful way, but I think it’s definitely built her confidence up too.

Stephanie Larscheid:

And that’s so important too. The realizing you have a voice. We talk about that so much with next-gens that use your voice. Here’s how you can become educated and powerful in your own and not just sit back and wait for all the information and decisions to affect you, but for you to make an impact on what you see as opportunities in the business and in the family. So you mentioned family meetings and it’s wonderful. I love that the Millman family has family meetings. There are some people listening to this who have family meetings and are really comfortable with that. And there are others who have never had a family meeting and some who might think, oh my goodness, I don’t even know where I would begin, how that would go with our family. So what insights do you have from your own family meeting experiences?

Abby Woodford:

Yeah. Ours, prior to going to the retreat back in 2021, we didn’t do that. Our family meetings would be like, oh, we’re at Christmas at mom and dad’s and something work would get brought up and it would just spiral into all the things. So really being more intentional about having these meetings where everybody can come. Schedules are hard between the three of us girls. There’s eight grandchildren. So it is a lot. But making sure that we plan that time. And like I said, our rule is simple. We make sure that everyone has a voice at the meetings and we don’t want anything left unsaid. At our last meeting when we were talking about ownership changes and stuff, it was a little … Not tense, but I could tell that there was some things that people wanted to say. And so again, just no judgment. We’re family and family first always. So making sure that everybody knows that they can speak up. doesn’t mean that we’ll all like it or that sort of thing. My mom gets really emotional about it and making sure that we never fight or that we all get along and everybody loves each other and all that.

But the reality of it is that, like I said, family business is hard, but we have to stick together because that’s who we have. And so really being a team, all of us, and that includes our husbands as well and our mom and dad. And we try so hard to make it a point to not talk about the business when we’re … Like last weekend, my parents had an Easter egg hunt for the kids, and so making sure we didn’t bring up work there or when we go on a trip or when we’re at Christmas or that sort of thing. And really keeping business as far as we can outside of our personal family time because the kids don’t need to hear … The little kiddos. Not to say that sometimes that boundary doesn’t get crossed and we go down a rabbit hole, but for the most part, we really try to stick to that and holding that standard so that we can cherish the time outside of work.

Stephanie Larscheid:

When you’re having your family meetings and certainly there are things that you talk about that are exciting and great and others that are a little bit more challenging or might create some conflict. We talk a lot about the Goldilocks effect and how that can be so helpful to think about because any family that has no conflict, that’s not necessarily a healthy situation. And any family that has conflict all the time, again, not necessarily a healthy situation. But the family who has a good balance of, sometimes we have a little conflict and we can challenge one another’s thoughts and perspectives, and sometimes we get along and we recognize that this decision will be made and we’ll go ahead with it. And that Goldilocks, you need a little, not too much, but a little bit is good, is really a great place to be for a family having family meetings. When you work on your family meetings and you put your agenda together, is it one or two people driving the agenda or is it all of you contributing to the agenda items?

Abby Woodford:

Yeah. So Paul did it originally and then he’ll send it out, and so we know. And then we all can add value and input to it, which is nice because I may have things that the others haven’t thought of or Lee’s very much think outside the box. And Paul and I, we’ve been doing this for so long … And Lori too, but she’s more retired now. But just because we’ve always done it a certain way doesn’t mean we need to do it that way going forward. So it’s really important for us to make sure that everybody can be a part of that and have their input on the agenda. Not that we don’t go off-topic on things.

Stephanie Larscheid:

That’s great. Keep it up.

Abby Woodford:

Yeah. Thank you.

Stephanie Larscheid:

Keep those family meetings happening.

Abby Woodford:

Yes. Thank you.

Stephanie Larscheid:

When you think about the future of Interim HealthCare and your family, what excites you about that?

Abby Woodford:

I always get so emotional. But just looking back over the last 33 and a half years where we started. The last even five years, how much we’ve grown. I think for me it’s important as the next generation, once Paul retires fully and my parents are no longer actively in the business in the day-to-day that for us is really just keeping that family feel because we want to make sure that everybody, even people on our team feel that they’re a part of our family. And for me, it’s really important to just always stay humble and know that when I look back 33 years ago where my parents started, my dad always tells the story of, they started with one employee, field employee, my mom and dad, and a little bit of money in the bank, and that huge leap of faith that they took and now knowing how far we’ve come, and it’s just so exciting to look to the future and see the possibility of Gen-2 carrying this through and the possibility of Gen-3. And my oldest daughter says she wants to be a nurse, so that’s very exciting for me because I did not do nursing. And so to have that, that’s a key piece in our business.

And my mom is a nurse, so now that she’s not actively working in. So it’s exciting just to see where we’re at now and the goals for the future. My hope is that the little kids want to be in the business, but again, I want them to do what they want to do. My youngest sister, Emily, it took her working outside of the business for several years before she felt really a calling, and that came from a family meeting we had that she felt like she wanted to be a part of the family business. And so that’s been amazing to see that transition over time. I went and worked outside of the family business before I came here. So I think that’s important too. I want the grandkids, my nieces and nephews to have the experience. They can work at Interim like I did, but also have that outside experience because it is unique as I said.

Stephanie Larscheid:

It is. Yeah. Along those lines, any advice or insight that you’d give to other next gens?

Abby Woodford:

Yeah. I think when I look back at evolving in this business and all that I’ve done, I think really just starting from the bottom, working hard, making sure you’re learning all aspects of the business because like I said, I have done pretty much every role I could except for the nurse because I’m not a nurse, but that’s really helped me evolve too in my role and have that broad overview of what does it take to run Interim HealthCare? All the little pieces all add up in the, to make it work and grow every year. And so just being patient, trusting the process, remembering that family business is unique and it can feel really hard at times, but the reward definitely outweighs the difficult moments. And knowing that you’re carrying out that legacy that was started by grandparents or parents or aunts and uncles, whoever that may be, is really important.

Stephanie Larscheid:

It is. And that’s what family business is all about. Is there anything we didn’t cover that you want to mention today?

Abby Woodford:

I don’t think so. For us, at Interim HealthCare it’s just important to just remember where we came from and keep growing and keep learning. And how can we always adhere to our core values? And the EOS system, like I said, has been instrumental for us. Prairie Family Business … And I’m not just saying that because I’m talking to you, Stephanie. It truly has been just life-changing for us in the last three and a half, four years. I don’t know where we’d be, and I don’t want to look back because we’ve made great strides. So having that foundation now for us also as Gen-2 looks to take over in the next few years is just so invaluable. So thank you for all you guys do too.

Stephanie Larscheid:

Yeah. And the relationships in the community and some of the relationships that you’ve been able to form through the Prairie Family Business Association community, whether that’s fellow families you’re able to do business with, or whether advisors that you’ve met along the way, all of that coming together. We’re here to support one another. We’re all in this together.

Abby Woodford:

Yes.

Stephanie Larscheid:

It’s not easy and there’s not a one size fits all. You have to figure out what’s best for you, and you’re certainly doing that at Interim HealthCare.

Abby Woodford:

Thank you.

Stephanie Larscheid:

So thank you so much for today’s conversation. This has been very insightful, and I appreciate you, Abby.

Abby Woodford:

Thank you. Likewise, Stephanie.

Stephanie Larscheid:

Thank you. That was Abby Woodford, part owner of Interim HealthCare, a family business caring for communities across South Dakota, North Dakota, and beyond for over 33 years. Who could have predicted that the little girls leaving love notes for office staff would grow up to lead a company with such a profound impact. For Abby, it’s about more than just business. It’s about carrying forward her parents’ legacy while keeping family at the heart of it all. Her commitment to core values like accountability, respect, integrity, stewardship, and empathy shine through in every aspect of Interim HealthCare. Abby’s insights are a testament to the power of Prairie Family Business Association and our community. If you’re curious about the resources and opportun.ities she mentioned, visit our website at fambus.org that’s F-A-M-B-U-S.org. And follow us on social media for more stories from inspiring leaders like Abby.