July Employee Spotlight – Neal Richardson

Neal is the Manager of our Meyer Medical Equipment Center overseeing locations in Bellevue and Tukwila. He joined Bridge in 2018 and he came to Bridge because of a personal conviction. He explains, “I was brought to Bridge for the challenge! I had experience working with medical equipment and only had a handful of experience working with people with disabilities and I wanted to dig deeper into helping that community and thought Bridge would be the direction for that.”

Neal was born and grew up in the mid-west. He is the second of three sons born to Salvation Army pastors, so he traveled a lot during his childhood.  He graduated from Missouri State University where he played rugby and taught swim lessons. In fact, Neal is an accomplished and certified swim and lifeguard instructor. He has been teaching these skills since he was 15 years old! 

Another note-worthy accomplishment was a psychology paper Neal wrote during his sophomore year in college about children’s risk of gangs and had it published in 2010. Way to go Neal! 

Neal has some dreams for MMEC and the most important one is that he wants the equipment center to become a household name- that everyone in the Seattle area knows we are here and that we can help everyone with the medical equipment they need. (And expanding the center locations beyond Bellevue and Tukwila is on the wish list too!)

Neal would like to share these wise words from Maya Angelou: “It may in fact be utterly impossible to be successful without helping others to become successful.”  We believe that Neal lives by these words and works hard to make the Meyer Medical Equipment Center succeed both for its staff as well as for everyone it serves.

I remember when we were searching to fill a much-needed position at the Meyer Medical Equipment Center and after going through several failed interviews, I despaired of ever finding the person who would be the right fit. But I had one last person to interview and when Neal walked in, I knew we had found our person!  He was professional, well-spoken, and his enthusiasm for the position was evident.

That was 4 years ago and since then Neal has risen to the manager position overseeing both locations of the equipment center. Some days were tough, but Neal has stuck it out and persevered and I think that it what I saw most in him at that first meeting.    Jackie Kieszek

Neal, we appreciate all you do for the equipment center- it has not gone unnoticed. Keep up the good work and may you be richly blessed for it! 

Categorised in: Bridge Story