BusinessReport.com

It’s not always easy being in business with family, Amy Strother Gatz explains as raucous laughter erupts outside her office door.

Employees having fun.

“We play practical jokes around here, and I think somebody just discovered one,” says the CEO of United Home Care.

The hilarity unfolding in the hallway reflects Strother Gatz’s business philosophy, which she says is all about providing a great environment for her employees. And employees concerned with each other’s welfare make for the best kind of team, Strother Gatz says.

“My management team has been together a really long time, and so we’re very close and we all care for each other,” she says. “We sort of have a rhythm going.”

Strother Gatz, a Hammond native, joined United in a sales and marketing capacity in the mid-1990s when her dad ran the company. Before long father and daughter were running things together, an arrangement that lasted for years even though it was less than ideal, according to Strother Gatz.

Their goals differed, and there they were both “chiefs,” she says.

Strother Gatz became CEO in 2000, purchasing the company from her father in 2003. She’s grown United by 20% each year since and appears to be on track to do the same thing this year.

Strother Gatz credits a talented team and shared vision, while conceding her business style may have played a role. She considers herself fair, prudent and able to entertain multiple viewpoints, qualities she believes make her a good manager and people person. Strother Gatz says her insistence on running an ethical operation motivates people.

She’s less adept in other categories.

“I am absolutely horrible at details. I procrastinate. I’m terribly disorganized. I’m terribly messy,” Strother Gatz says. “I have just as many things that I’m awful at that I have to watch every single day, all day long that can potentially make me a horrible manager.”

That one can’t be perfect all the time is a tough lesson to learn for managers and business owners, she says, and it was a tough lesson for her to learn. Another thing: Running a successful business is never as easy as it looks. Not that she’s afraid of hard work; Strother Gatz has done it her life. She’s been a waitress.

“I think everybody should have to work as a busboy, a dishwasher, a waitress or a waiter at some point,” she says. “It really puts things in perspective.”

Strother Gatz is passionate about her business, but it’s not all she’s passionate about. When she’s not cracking the whip as CEO, she’s likely volunteering for environmental causes or the American Heart Association, which takes up a lot of her time.

She recently discovered something called a “vacation.” Strother Gatz has never taken time off for herself before, though she’s about to give it whirl. She plans to spend a few days off to putter around her newly renovated home, working in the garden and maybe doing some cooking, which she also loves. Strother Gatz isn’t sure how the whole thing’s going to go.

“I’m nervous as hell,” she says.