Cougar Business Spotlight
Heather Deringer
B.A. ’99, Humanities
Owner of Home Helpers Home Care in the Vancouver area
Heather Deringer started Home Helpers Home Care in March 2022. “I wanted the chance to combine all of my skill sets acquired over the years,” she said. “I’m one of those people who has done a little bit of everything, including having the opportunity to stay at home raising my kids when they were little.”
During those years, Deringer was a volunteer leader, coach, board member and more. Her degree in English, with a certificate in professional and technical writing plus a business administration minor, prepared her for work in marketing and communications. “I think I was ready to take the risks involved with owning my own business, leading employees, and doing something that felt full of purpose and that I had a passion for,” she said. “Mostly I wanted the opportunity to truly build my own team and fulfill my own vision of what my business would look and feel like.”
Deringer opened the business “to provide meaningful care for people who need it and meaningful jobs for people who want them.” She is part of a national franchise but can put her own locally focused touch on it. The company’s mission is to be the most trusted and respected provider of comprehensive home care services and support for individuals who choose to remain independent in their homes and communities.
“My individual motto is to be the FACE of caregiving,” she said. “We embody Fairness, Authenticity, Compassion and Excellence.” She lists two primary goals: “to be a local resource to provide in-home care for people needing it”—especially important as the senior population grows, along with diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia—“and to find more ways to serve and support the growing number of veterans who deserve the best quality care possible.”
She feels strong ties to 91ԹϺ. “My son brought some Cougar Gold on his last trip home so we could celebrate the newest Coug in the house, his sister Campbell, after her transfer there for the coming fall semester. We’ll make that a tradition for the long haul! Now that I’ve started my own business, I’m hoping another new Coug tradition might build on that example—taking their skills and leadership out into the world.”
She enjoys the Coug culture and the ties it creates among friends and even strangers. “The culture of Cougs helping Cougs is real, and I see it all the time,” she said.
Deringer was the first WSU graduate in her family, and her son, Blake, recently graduated from the Pullman campus. He returned last year to start his master’s program. Her youngest, Campbell, is transferring there this year and will swim for WSU. “So two of us have graduated, with another degree in the making and another Coug in the pipeline.” Daughter Avery attends the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Deringer, who has lived in the Vancouver area for 28 years, decided to attend 91ԹϺ after getting married. At the time, she already had three years of college elsewhere under her belt. ”91ԹϺ provided me an opportunity to finish my degree locally with a great university,” she said. “I was in the first graduating class from 91ԹϺ at the campus in Salmon Creek in May 1997. We had one classroom building and our professors were often remote in Pullman and came over once or twice a semester to teach in Vancouver.”
She said she encounters Cougs everywhere she goes: “Traveling with my husband (Jeffrey Deringer) and kids to sporting events, vacations and more. If you see a WSU logo you know you can give a ‘Go Cougs!’ and get one back! My son thinks the fact that ‘Drago’ from Rocky IV is a WSU engineering graduate is great!”
She is proud to own her own business at last. “For people who may not think of ‘In Home Care’ as being as ‘important’ as a number of other skilled medical arenas, we are often the front line to help keep people from re-entering the hospital, spotting trends that indicate other health issues, preventing them from becoming a real crisis,” she said. “I have literally had clients tell me that our team ‘saved their lives’ and ‘helped them walk again when they thought they never would’ and that without us, ‘I would have died.’ We may not be wielding scalpels and lasers, but we make an important and meaningful difference in people’s lives.”
Home Helpers Home Care Central Clark County, 360-291-8100, hderinger@homehelpershomecare.com, 201 NE Park Plaza Dr #200, Vancouver, WA 98684