The Incredible Story of Rob Groeschen and His Brain Damaged Brother

The Wall Street Journal has the story of Rob Groeschen who in middle age built a company to help his brain damaged brother. It is an incredible tale with many lessons--both inspirational and cautionary.

Rob's story is about what happened when he became responsible for the care of his older brother Tom who had suffered severe brain damage in a 1983 car crash. Rob initially took the "traditional" route of supporting his brother but after finding how limiting this approach was took the courageous step of actually founding a company to help his brother Tom and others like him.

Tom's story is not unique though his approach certainly is. There are an estimated nine million people in the U.S. who are disabled from stroke, traumatic brain injury or brain hemorrhage. While rehabilitation helps some, many remain like Rob's brother Tom are unable to function at anywhere near their former capacity and depend on their families to survive.

The Background

In the 1983 car crash, Tom suffered severe head trauma and lingered in a coma for more than three months. Tom's mother later recalled a social worker telling her, "You'll have to bury the person you knew, and accept the person you have now."

The social worker was right. Once a star athlete, Tom now struggled to resume any form of normal life. It was hard for him to find work and harder for him to hold on to it. His most successful job was cleaning truck stop restrooms, but there were set backs even with that such as getting lost on the bus trips home.

Meanwhile, Tom's younger brother Rob had become a successful businessman via his recycling and hazardous-waste-handling company called Resource One.

Rob had assumed primary responsibility for Tom's care and was frustrated that there wasn't more that could be done for Tom. Specifically that there were so few working situations well-suited to people with brain injuries.

So Rob gave himself a new mid-career mission and created a company to employ and help people like Tom.

Inspirational Lessons

The company that Rob started, In Return, provides structure for the brain impaired employee but with room to develop. People who have seen Tom lately say they hardly recognize him. He speaks more clearly, with much less of a slur, and is more social.

In Return continues to grow and get new accounts and sadly there is no shortage of workers in need of its opportunities.

In some ways the biggest beneficiary may be Rob. It's not hard to imagine the satisfaction he must feel about his midlife mission. If In Return is successful in the long run, Rob will go to his grave with the knowledge that he helped people in a way that few could. It's impossible to put a price on that feeling.

Proceed With Caution

Rob has lost $200,000 on In Return and notes that it has been much more difficult than he had ever imagined. And it is far from certain that In Return will be successful.

Just because the company is driven by a strong social benefit, it is still a company with all of the headaches, responsibilities, and set-backs of any other company.

Beyond the cash, running both In Return and his other company is stressful and requires long hours. This has put a noticeable strain on Rob's marriage. As important as a mission that he is on, Rob has a 5-year old daughter who is seeing far less of her father because of In Return.

Thoughts

Rob's talents and financial resources made him uniquely qualified to have undertaken what he did so the key takeaway isn't that everyone in a situation like Rob's should go out and start a company. Furthermore, as we saw with Rob, the toll on the wife and children must be factored in.

The real lesson is that otherwise regular people can do extraordinary things and yes this includes you. Sometimes our opportunity to do our extraordinary thing does not appear until later in our lives. In Rob's case it was a family member that was the catalyst for his midlife metamorphism, for others it might be a story they read in the paper (or a blog) combined with being at a time/place in their lives where they can get up and do something about it.

The extraordinary things you do might be as "small" as volunteering to visit shut-ins or delivering Meals on Wheels. I read a story in the Los Angeles Times about people who volunteer to sit with people who are dying but have no immediate family members. These volunteers are there to insure that their final moments are not spent alone--talk about an amazing gift to give someone.

In short, you are never too old or too untrained, etc., to make an impact on people in need and sometimes it just takes a catalyst of some sort to know exactly what that is.

Link to WSJ story (note that WSJ sometimes requires registration or fee). Alternate link.

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