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Michael Walsh’s life has been inspired by three things: serving others, creating meaningful change, and his family. As Michael grew up and watched his incredible mom raise 5 kids while balancing being a full-time caregiver, his dad was hard at work running their family business in the Chicago suburbs.

Michael and Steven Theesfeld, Cariloop’s other co-founder, are lifelong friends, brothers and teammates. They grew up together, went to school together, and were even on many of the same sports teams together. Michael was Steven’s best man at his wedding, and Steven was the officiant at Michael’s wedding. Deep down, they always knew they wanted to start a business and tackle a big problem that the world was experiencing, together.

Michael graduated from Purdue University about a year before the financial crisis in 2008. He worked as a consultant at the time where the majority of his client engagements focused on large health care corporations, helping them to better manage risk and discover new and improved ways to operate. When the Affordable Care Act rolled out, many of his clients started asking questions about how to better help patients and their families as they were discharged from a hospital or other facility. Hearing this, and also having witnessed firsthand what their own loved ones had gone through, the inspiration became clear: Michael and Steven decided they had to do something to support the world’s families and caregivers.

Now 10 years into building Cariloop, Michael says his favorite part of the journey has been to work side-by-side with Cariloop’s Care Coaches, and the entire team, to reach those families who need to be picked up.