Executive suite: Linda Cunegin, health agency chief
When Ella Ferguson died in 2002, her daughter, Linda Cunegin, had to decide whether to sell or take over Tri-County Home Nursing Services, the home health care agency her mother founded in 1981.
"My mother's employees and the clients had been together for like 15 years, and it was just too much" to sell it, Cunegin says. "I said, well, let me keep my legacy."
This month, the Westbury-based agency opened a second office in Coram, fulfilling what Cunegin, the president, says was one of her mother's plans.
Cunegin, whose background is in urban planning and administration, is a former employee of Broward County, Fla. "I counted the chads," she says, referring to the contested 2000 presidential election.
Cunegin, 63, has two daughters, both of whom help run the business -- Taniella Jo Harrison is executive director, and Giana Harrison is assistant executive director. Cunegin also has two grandchildren.
What do you look for when you're hiring?
"Multicultural diversity -- we have a rainbow of aides. We train for multicultural understanding and sensitivity. Some people, if you're staying at their house, you can't eat pork, you can't touch the food. You really, in this new age of multicultural diversity . . . you have to meet the needs of a rainbow of people."
She adds, "We just got a nurse that used to be a PCA [personal care aide] -- we've seen her go through college."
How do you communicate with your employees?
"Word of mouth, that's the best. We're not a memo-driven organization. I wanted this to be a little bit different than anywhere that I worked. I didn't want it to be competitive, dog-eat-dog."
Giana Harrison adds that the company holds weekly staff meetings and keeps workers informed through a Web site and a quarterly newsletter.
What would you change about Long Island?
"They need to take an example from the University of Michigan and set up jitney services. Mobility is opportunity. If you can't get there, you can't get the help, you can't get to the hospital, you can't get to the food pantry to get some food, you can't get to anything. I would recommend identifying the resources to develop jitney plans to employ the unemployed and provide a necessary service in different areas."
"Another thing I would do is build more socially economic types of housing where you can attract the kind of human resources that are needed to support a community."
Tell me about something meaningful to you on display in your office.
"I don't have an office," she says, adding that she uses a conference room. "She sits wherever she wants," quips Giana Harrison.
Turning behind her, she points to a sign with a mission statement her mother wrote. "This is my mother's original. It reminds me of where my mother came from and where we are now." The mountains in the company logo represent the three generations behind the family business, she says.
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