With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1222419
W I N N E R LAURA PATRICK F O U N D E R + C E O , K I D S P H Y S I O G R O U P A LOVE OF BABYSITTING turned into a career in pediatric physiotherapy for Laura Patrick, who worked for Vancouver Coastal Health after earning a master's in physical therapy at McMaster University in Hamilton. But as one of three people covering the entire Vancouver School District, with a caseload of about 100 kids, she saw that there were limits to what she could do. It came to a head when a young girl was having surgery at BC Children's Hospital. "After she was discharged home, her mom asked me where Cristina was going to get physio done," Patrick recalls. "As her public physiothera- pist, it was my responsibility to help her family navigate the private world, and I honestly came up very empty-handed—I didn't really know where this kid was going to get physio from. So her mom planted a seed in me and said, 'Can you just do it?'" So Patrick quit her job and set about establishing a private practice in her hometown. She spent about four years running the business out of her Kitsilano garage, but in 2009, with help from the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs ("it gave me some really strong foundations"), she opened Kids Physio on Fraser Street. To date, the business has seen more than 15,000 kids, and Patrick now has four other B.C. locations. Having launched her first franchise outfit in Toronto last year, she plans to do the same with a school colleague in the city of her alma mater. "We want kids across Can- ada to have easy access to Kids Physio Group," Patrick says when asked about her future plans. "The big goal would be 30 locations across the country in major metropolitan areas so that kids don't have to go to adult-centred practices and can come to a place designed exclusively for them." —N.C. PETER HOLST 26 BCBUSINESS APRIL 2020