Good Neighbor Podcast: Virginia Beach
Good Neighbor Podcast: Virginia Beach
Good Neighbor Podcast: Virginia Beach
Ep. 22 Wheels When You Need Them: The Golden Rule of Patient Transport
When mobility becomes a barrier to healthcare, special events, or even attending a loved one's funeral, the consequences extend far beyond mere inconvenience. Johnnie Reed recognized this critical gap in services and founded Grace Transportation ten years ago, creating a lifeline for those navigating the healthcare system and life's important moments in Hampton Roads.
The transportation service began with a focused mission on non-emergency medical appointments but quickly expanded to meet broader community needs. Today, Grace Transportation doesn't just shuttle patients to dialysis treatments and doctor visits—they enable wheelchair users to attend proms, help families get to church services, and provide dignified transportation for funeral attendance. This evolution reflects Johnny's deep understanding that transportation isn't merely a logistical matter but a profound human need.
What sets Grace Transportation apart is their unwavering commitment to treating passengers with dignity and respect. As Johnnie poignantly shares, this philosophy stems from personal experience when her mother needed cancer treatment transportation. "A lot of people just look at it as transportation. I want them to feel comfortable and relaxed with us," she explains. This golden rule approach—training drivers to treat each passenger as they would their own family member—creates an atmosphere of care that transcends typical transportation services. Now, as Johnny prepares for retirement at 71, she's thoughtfully transitioning the business to her granddaughter, ensuring that Grace Transportation's compassionate approach continues serving the Virginia Beach community for years to come.
Need transportation in Hampton Roads that treats you like family? Contact Grace Transportation today and experience the difference that dignity-centered service makes for medical appointments and special occasions alike.
Grace Transportation Service
Johnnie Reid
Virginia Beach, VA
757-362-1188
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Denise Taylor.
Speaker 2:Hi, today I'm with Johnny Reed with Grace Transportation in Virginia Beach. Welcome, Johnny.
Speaker 3:Thank you, welcome. I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2:Good, tell me about your business.
Speaker 3:Okay, grace Transportation is a family-owned business. We started about 10 years ago and what we actually do is non-emergency medical transportation. So we provide services for members to take them to the doctors or to their dialysis appointments. We even take people to church if they need that service as well. So we've kind of expanded off into that. We actually started with just doing non-emergency medical transportation so we had an operating authority to just take people back and forth to the doctor. But we expanded after a couple years to do for hire, so that meant that we could do any type of transportation and meet other customers' needs. We wanted to kind of focus we started with the wheelchairs to kind of focus on kids in wheelchairs and that maybe wanted to go to the prom. So that was something that we were looking at and also, too, for members that had their family members that had passed away and they were in wheelchairs and they wanted to attend the funeral. So we provide that transportation as well.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic. So you've been in business for 10 years and then when did you transition to be able to provide transportation for outside of the yeah?
Speaker 3:So that about three years after going into the business, because we saw a need for, you know, just to do the on hire, you know, for hire, so we were able to just expand to do those things.
Speaker 2:And you mentioned something about members. Do you have a membership and how does that work?
Speaker 3:I actually work right now I do have five brokers. Those brokers come in and they sign trips to me and I can accept the ones that I can do and the ones that I cannot do.
Speaker 2:How many drivers do you currently have?
Speaker 3:I have five drivers right now and I have five vehicles.
Speaker 2:And you service. What cities do you service?
Speaker 3:I service Norfolk, virginia Beach, chesapeake, basically the seven cities, I would say the Hampton Roads area.
Speaker 2:Great. And what is the typical cost of the transportation? Right but for hire.
Speaker 3:It's kind of pricey because we go by mileage. Okay Depends on whether the person is an ambulatory, meaning that they can walk and get into the vehicle, or if they're wheelchairs. So they vary between the two and we go by mileage.
Speaker 2:So Okay, perfect. Can you tell me some myths or misconceptions about your business?
Speaker 3:Oh, I can tell you probably a lot, because I have picked up a lot of members and they're they're saying that they've been dropped off and have not been picked back up. Oh, no, yes, or they're not picked up on time. So that's the thing that we focus on is our quality is being on time for on-time delivery and pick up, and we try to pick up as soon as possible.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic, what? What is one thing you wish our listeners knew about your business locally here in Virginia Beach?
Speaker 3:Well, that we are. Like I said, we strive to do, you know, good business with people. We also, you know, we we treat people like they are family members, Because the thing about it is, you know, I looked at it I had my mom here with me for a while and she had esophagus cancer and had to be transported for chemo and stuff.
Speaker 3:And you know a lot of people they just look at it as transportation. I don't want to have my business out there to say I'm just here transporting a member or a person. I want them to feel comfortable and relaxed with us and that's what we try to do. I, you know, I've trained my drivers to say, okay, this could be your mother, you know, this could be your, you know, so you want to treat them as such. You know it's the golden rule.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is the golden rule. That's fantastic, fantastic Outside of what, your involvement, obviously, in this medical community, in the community with transportation and patients. What do you do in Virginia Beach for fun, or how do you spend your extracurricular time?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm going to be honest with you.
Speaker 2:I'm one years old and my husband he's. I'm sorry you cut out. What was it.
Speaker 3:Sorry, I'm 71 years old and my husband's 79. And, like I said, we started it about 10 years ago when I was working for a corporate corporation and he and I both we're in the transition of retiring. So what I did was I brought my granddaughter here from Atlanta, georgia, so I'm trying to transition her to be able to run this business and she's done a great job. She's been here for about three years now. So, for fun, I do a lot of traveling, I do a lot of cruises.
Speaker 2:Oh fun. Where's your favorite place that you've cruised to? Oh?
Speaker 3:Hawaii. I just went to Hawaii and we went to all the islands, so that was really nice. I enjoyed that.
Speaker 2:When did you do that?
Speaker 3:A couple of months ago actually in April.
Speaker 2:And how long was the cruise? For 16 days. How many days 16. Oh wow, Good for you.
Speaker 3:So before my granddaughter came I wasn't able to do any really, you know, traveling or me and my husband to do any traveling or anything, because this business is very demanding. You know, we started out, like I said, 10 years ago and we were doing that, we were doing almost seven days a week, you know, and then people were even hospital discharges late at night and we would try to do that. But that was just to get, you know, get our business going. But we've kind of scaled back from doing that. So we have hours of operation from six to six and I do Monday through, I do Monday through Saturday and then, like I said too, if a person wants to go to church on Sunday or something, we do make provisions for that you know when we can.
Speaker 2:So tell me what your typical day looks like, your Monday through Saturday. Oh, just running this business. It sounds like a lot of moving parts. Tell me about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it starts out at five o'clock in the morning and it could start earlier because we have, you know, dialysis clients that have to be picked up that time. So drivers come, they get the paperwork for the previous you know, I actually have it for them the previous day but they start out then with that and the phone is ringing off the hook every five minutes because I'm ready to be picked up, you know or either go back home, so we have dispatching. My granddaughter and I both do the dispatching, we do all the paperwork, we even do the driving. So today was one of the fortunate days I didn't have to go out.
Speaker 2:And how are you typically getting the business? I mean, do the doctors know about you? Do the facilities know about you? Is it word of mouth?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's basically kind of word of mouth but, like I said, I work for different brokers and they send trips to me and I choose the ones that I want, but I also have, you know, certain facilities that you know call me because they have assistant living, and that's what really. I want to expand more into that, into doing this the assistant living in the private sector.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic. Tell our listeners your website and how they can get in touch with you. Okay.
Speaker 3:The phone number here is 757-326-6600 or 757-326-1188. 888-326-1188. It's gracetransportationservicesllc at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's your email address, and then your website is gracetransportationservicecom. Is that right? Yes, perfect. Thank you so much, johnny, for being here today and being part of our community. Okay, and thank you for having me. You're welcome.
Speaker 3:Have a good day.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpvirginiabeachcom. That's gnpvirginiabeachcom, or call 757-797-8352.