Nicolas Thomley's grandfather, an employee of the Minnesota Department of Rehabilitation Services, often invited down-on-their-luck clients to family dinners. His mother, a psychologist who worked with adults with developmental disabilities, did the same.
No surprise, then, that Thomley started working with people with disabilities when he was 16. Or that at the tender age of 19, he cofounded a business to provide services to such individuals, including help in finding housing and employment, in-home care and assistance, and financial management. Eight years later, St. Louis Park-based Pinnacle Services has 65 full-time employees and is on pace to bring in $8 million in revenue in 2007.
After incorporating their new business in 1999, Thomley and his partner spent most of 2000 developing a business plan and working to obtain a license for providing services through the Minnesota Department of Human Services. They quickly found themselves facing a Catch-22. In order to get a service contract from Hennepin County, there had to be an interest expressed by a case manager—but the case manager couldn't use Pinnacle's services until a contract had been granted.
"Fortunately, we did find a social worker who was willing to take a chance on us when we had no track record, and we were finally able to apply for and get a contract for managing Medicaid dollars on behalf of disabled recipients," Thomley recalls.
The next year was a whirlwind. After landing six clients in the first three months of 2001, business exploded. By the end of June, Pinnacle had 150 clients, and Thomley was scrambling to stay on top of the company's finances. In a month's time, he blew through the $20,000 he had borrowed from his grandmother, a psychologist who ran a St. Cloud-based business similar to his.
Pinnacle needed a line of credit—a big challenge for a 21-year-old college student whose business had no financial history. Finally, Union Bank & Trust in Northeast Minneapolis agreed to provide a $100,000 line of credit as long as Thomley could provide collateral. Back to Grandma he went; she agreed to put up her house.
Thomley soon was able to pay off his grandmother, buy out his partner, and add innovative new services, such as a respite-care program that provides relief for primary caregivers. "We pick up small groups of children on Friday at 5 p.m. and bring them to a hotel for a weekend of fun, developmentally appropriate activities," Thomley says. "That allows parents to go on vacation or take a break, because caring for a child with a disability can be significantly challenging."
Thomley is especially proud of Pinnacle's community employment program. "We've taken the position that people with developmental disabilities or mental health issues should be completely integrated into an employment setting," Thomley says. "These are competitive jobs, meaning that these are jobs that people without disabilities could hold, and they're all above minimum wage. One of our huge success stories is a guy with a form of autism who was hired at Rainbow Foods to bring in carts and mop the floors." After a year and a half, Thomley notes, the client was promoted within the department and was supervising people without disabilities.
What's next for Pinnacle? "The majority of what we do is government funded, but we're pushing more into the HMO, private-pay, and long termÐcare insurance arenas," Thomley says. "There are logical reasons for it, with the baby boomers reaching retirement age. But we also need to diversify for the simple fact that if there's legislation passed that cuts funding or hurts us somehow, we want to be able to accommodate for that."
