Turning 30 in growth mode, Senior Planning Services (SPS) has a lot to celebrate. For 30 years, SPS has served as a beacon for people and families in the Santa Barbara area in need of elder care. The company has commemorated its milestone anniversary in a big way, with the acquisition of Ventura-based Meditech Services.
“Meditech was another company very similar to ours, with a strong reputation, owned by one person, whom I’d known for about 30 years,” said Debra DiNapoli, CEO of Senior Planning Services. “The owner decided she wanted to retire and she reached out to me to see if I was interested in taking over her company.
“I originally said, ‘No, I want to retire,’ but anyway, you see how well that worked.”
With this acquisition, SPS has about doubled in size. It’s also added a new care aspect, staffing hospitals in Ventura, and can now pull caregivers from Ventura County into Santa Barbara, which DiNapoli noted “has a limited pool of caregivers.”
“This also has made us a much larger company, which just helps us to grow more quickly, with that economy of scale, and our services are now available from Thousand Oaks to Santa Maria,” she said.
“In general, this expands our reach in terms of everything we do,” DiNapoli said. “It’s a very complex healthcare system that we have to deal with, and I feel that we are really helping people make their way through this maze – and now we can help more people.”
Senior Planning Services was launched 30 years ago by Suzanne McNeely, a social worker in Santa Barbara who’d seen a real need for it among local seniors.
With so many elderly citizens isolated from loved ones by geography and/or estrangement, McNeely saw how badly they needed help in navigating the maze of care management required for effective aging and healthcare plans.
In its early years, SPS specialized in senior care management, contracting with other agencies to supply the caretakers – including from an agency that was run by DiNapoli. Eventually, McNeely and DiNapoli decided to pool their resources, with DiNapoli joining the SPS team about 20 years ago. She began as a consultant, rising over the years to be director of business development, general manager and, in 2014, chief operating officer.
That year, McNeely took ill; she passed away in May 2015, and DiNapoli took the reins. Now the company’s chief executive operating officer, DiNapoli honors McNeely’s work every day and feels more dutybound than ever to provide her company’s services.
“This is a very needed business,” she said. “We have thousands of people turning 65 every day. We’ve helped thousands of clients and families get through this aging process with as much dignity as possible. This is what we are here to do.”
Senior Planning Services is based in Santa Barbara, at 402 E. Carrillo St., Ste. C. For more information, visit www.seniorplanningservices.com. To reach DiNapoli, call 805-966-3312, ext. 7221, or email ddinapoli@seniorplanningservices.com.