There is a phrase cast above the entrance of Long Beach Polytechnic High School that Leslee Deanes-Bryant still carries with her every single day: Enter to learn. Go forth to serve.
She walked through those gates for the first time in 1987 as a 14-year-old girl who had arrived in Long Beach four years earlier. She could not have known then that those seven words would quietly define the arc of her entire life.
Today, Leslee is the founder and CEO of UltraCare Services, a nonmedical in-home care agency that has served over 1,600 clients in the last five years and employs more than 800 actively working caregivers across Los Angeles County. She has appeared on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the nation not once, not twice, but three times. She earned a Women Business Enterprise certification, a spot on the Inc. Veteran 100 list and recognition from CEO Today magazine's Healthcare Awards. By any measure, Leslee is a success story.
But success, she will tell you, is rarely the whole story.
Chicago Made Her, Long Beach Raised Her
Leslee was born in Chicago, but her mother made the leap west first, landing in Long Beach after a chance encounter on a work trip. She married into a family that, as Leslee describes it, was "a pillar in Long Beach" — a family she still considers her own to this day, even after the marriage ended within a year. "Nothing bad happened," she says simply. "I just think they didn't know each other."
What followed was a childhood defined by family and community. A beloved stepfather, James Kavanaugh, entered her life and became a cornerstone. When he and her mother later divorced during her high school years, he didn't disappear. "He [was] always still my father," she says.
Her biological father, Lester C. Deanes, based in Chicago, was equally present in spirit. When she crossed the stage at her college graduation, she heard someone yelling her name from the crowd. It was him — having made the trip because, as he told her, "How could I have missed this?"
"I was very fortunate," she reflects. "I had two fathers."
"Chicago made me," she says. "Long Beach raised me." If Long Beach raised her, Poly High forged her. A proud Jackrabbit, Class of 1991, Leslee played basketball and ran track, participated in school clubs, threw the best parties in the neighborhood and built many deep, cross-cultural friendships that still hold today. Schoolmates included Cameron Diaz, Snoop Dogg and NFL standout Willie McGinest. Tyus Edney, a close friend, was in her wedding; she was in his.
"We were friends before people knew who they were," she says with a laugh. "My house was the hangout house."
Leslee wasn't just a party girl — she also excelled academically. So when it came time to choose which college to attend, her school counselor questioned why she would choose Southern University in Baton Rouge over UC Santa Barbara, suggesting it might "ruin her career."
Leslee wasn't deterred. Safe to say, her counselor was, as Leslee puts it, "100% wrong." She headed to Baton Rouge — and never looked back.
Twenty-five Years in the Fast Lane
After graduating from Southern University in 1995, Leslee had her sights set on Atlanta. What she found instead was a $35,000 corporate job at Hallmark Cards in California — complete with company car, corporate credit card and annual bonuses in the thousands. Two years later, she made the move that would define the next quarter-century: pharmaceutical sales.
Calling exclusively on specialty practices — cardiovascular, endocrinology and gastrointestinal — she was never the typical rep. At 25, she was earning $60,000 base with bonuses pushing her well past six figures. She spent a decade at Abbott Laboratories, then five years at Merck.
She experienced one of the more surreal moments of her career at Merck: a layoff notice received while standing in line for Space Mountain at Disney World — a trip she had paid for, her kids and a friend in tow, after a record-breaking year. With five days remaining on the trip, "I had to pretend like everything was okay," she recalls.
She landed quickly at a third company, Ferring Pharmaceuticals, where she thrived — until June 1, 2020, the exact date she had been hired, ten years earlier. COVID-19 had arrived, and she found herself laid off again. 25 years in pharmaceutical sales was over.
"That was a hard pill to swallow," she says quietly. "When you're strong, people say you'll bounce back. We check on people. But who checks on the strong people?"
The Side Hustle That Became an Empire
The seeds of UltraCare Services had been planted years before the layoff — not in a boardroom, but in a hospital corridor and a worn copy of the Yellow Pages. When Leslee's grandmother became seriously ill following a medical mistake during surgery, Leslee found herself doing what so many families are forced to do: scrambling to find reliable, compassionate in-home care for a proud woman who needed help but refused to ask for it.
The search for care was exhausting, and the industry was largely invisible.
But Leslee saw an opportunity — as a pharmaceutical representative, she had spent years watching elderly patients cycle through specialty practices. She began researching late at night, filling notebooks with plans. "I didn't know what was next," she says. "I just knew I needed to make it something."
In 2010, she purchased a Home Helpers franchise in Beverly Hills as a side hustle. UltraCare got its first client in February 2011, earned $40,000 to $50,000 in its first year and grew to around $160,000 annually after five years — still secondary to her full-time salary. Leslee planned to retire from pharma in 2025, but COVID-19 hit in 2020 and derailed those plans.
"I guess my retirement plan started early," she recalls. UltraCare became her Plan A, and she never looked back. "I went from six figures to seven figures to eight figures within four years."
The Refusal to Break Amidst Adversity
What the awards and rankings don't show — and what Leslee shares with the unguarded honesty of someone with nothing left to hide — is that the years she was building UltraCare were also among the hardest. She was navigating a painful divorce, raising two children alone and facing a financial reckoning that would have stopped most people cold.
"I had to file bankruptcy," she says plainly. The consequences were swift and severe: in pharmaceutical sales, damaged credit is disqualifying — companies fear reps might steal and sell samples. Leslee had to appear before a review board to keep her job.
"Imagine having to go before a board of people who control your whole career, while your whole life is falling apart," she says. She steadied herself with her father's words: "You know how to make money. You'll be fine."
She kept her composure. She kept her job. She kept building.
Through it all, her children kept her grounded. Her daughter NiyaRae studied ballet for 10 summers in New York at American Ballet Theatre intensives, which included training from Misty Copeland, while her son Nolan played basketball and ran track. Both were straight-A students. "They were my inspiration," she said.
In 2019, Leslee remarried. Julius stepped into the family with quiet steadiness, and when her daughter was presented at the Links Cotillion — one of the most prestigious debutante events on the West Coast — he escorted her across the floor with pride.
Going Forth, Full Throttle
The break from the franchise came in 2021, after 10 years, and not one client delivered by Home Helpers despite years of royalty fees. The final catalyst was a text message sent to Leslee by mistake — revealing exactly what the franchise thought of her. The company moved to address it, but it wasn’t enough. That asymmetry was all Leslee needed to walk away.
"As soon as I closed that chapter, I took off," she says. Free and fully independent, she turned her full attention to UltraCare. Her strategy was not to sell — it was to educate.
"I didn't sell a service," she says. She filled a need. I [let] people know you don't want to be in what I call the crisis gap, by not having those uncomfortable conversations with your family members before it's too late."
Enter to learn was never just a tagline. For Leslee, it is a method.
To this day, Leslee personally conducts every initial home visit. She arrives not to pitch, but to listen — learning the client's daily rhythms, preferences, fears, and the layout and feel of their home. She assesses safety, reads the environment and begins the process of finding the right caregiver match, not just on paper, but in person.
"You cannot teach compassion," she says. "I assess a potential caregiver as someone I would trust in my own family's home. That is the most important thing."
The numbers reflect exactly that. A 636% growth rate earned her a first-time Inc. 5000 ranking of No. 927 in 2023. The following year, a 3,109% growth rate shot her to No. 103 — top 10 in health services nationally. By 2025, she was back at No. 288, her third consecutive appearance, with a 517% increase in her employee base along the way.
A Legacy Built on Compassion and Fortitude
Leslee's two children from her first marriage are thriving on their own terms. Her daughter NiyaRae, 25, graduated magna cum laude from Louisiana State University in biomedical engineering and holds multiple patents, including an oral thermometer designed for use during cardiac ablation surgery and redesigned surgical scissors engineered to cut tissue more efficiently.
Her son Nolan, 21, is finishing his degree in business marketing at Southern University — Leslee's alma mater — and the door is wide open. "If he can master AI," she says, "he can come work for my company and go from there."
When Leslee married Julius, she gained something she hadn't planned for but embraced wholeheartedly: two bonus children. Jazmyn, 26, holds a degree from UC Berkeley and a master's degree from UC San Diego. An extraordinarily talented artist, she is currently working at the Getty, carving out her own path in the art world.
And then there is Jaya, 13 — whom Leslee has been raising since she was just one year old. "She is my child," Leslee says simply. Jaya's easygoing spirit belies the way she fuels her mother's fire. "She tells me I could be president," Leslee laughs. "She hypes me up."
When asked about legacy, Leslee doesn't hesitate. "I don't want it just to be about the company that I built," she says. "I wanted it also to be about the families I supported, the jobs I created and the dignity I protected for people who deserve to age with respect in their home."
She has earned a spot on the Inc. Veteran 100 list, a recognition carrying deep personal weight. Her father, a Vietnam veteran, earned a Purple Heart for his service. "I am beyond grateful to help veterans who are in need," she says, "especially since they gave their lives for our country."
But perhaps the truest measure of Leslee Deanes-Bryant comes down to something simpler than any ranking or revenue figure — a line she lives by that explains why she built a company rooted in compassion and still pours into the community that poured into her: "Who you are when no one's looking is who you are."
"Who you are when no one's looking is who you are."
"I guess my retirement plan started early. I went from six figures to seven figures to eight figures within four years."