Cousins Joshua Markland and Chad Tracey spent years watching their grandmother live with Alzheimer’s disease, and even longer trying to find the level of in-home care they felt she deserved. The search was frustrating. The options were few. And the feeling that families in that position were being underserved stayed with both of them long after the experience ended.
By 2011, they had turned that frustration into a plan. Chad had spent over a decade in mortgage lending before launching his own firm. Josh had an accounting and finance background and had spent time as a missionary overseas before returning to corporate life. Neither felt fully settled in where their careers had taken them. “It all kind of aligned together,” Chad says of the decision to launch. Their Maryland home office opened its doors and took on its first client in 2012.
The name they chose wasn’t just a brand decision. It was a statement of intent, a declaration that the people who come through their doors, and the caregivers they send into clients’ homes, would be treated like family. That idea has guided 2nd Family from a single Maryland location to a franchise network now operating coast to coast.
A Higher Standard of Home Care
What separates the brand from the broader field is how that care is actually delivered. Where many non-medical home care agencies operate with minimal clinical oversight, 2nd Family took an approach that Chad describes as bringing “a medical home health mindset to non-medical home care.” Every client is assigned a dedicated RN Care Coordinator who conducts an initial assessment, manages the care plan, serves as the primary point of contact for the family, and returns at least every 90 days to reassess. That continuity of clinical oversight goes well above what is required by most states, but 2nd Family builds it into every engagement.
“Some states don’t really require RNs at all,” Chad notes. “Some require you to use them a little, but we use them a lot.”The caregivers who handle day-to-day care are vetted through the brand’s trademarked Grandma Guarantee®, a standard that asks a straightforward question of every candidate: would we trust this person with our own grandmother? It’s a simple bar, but one that carries real weight in a category where trust is everything. The standard is built into franchisee training and applied consistently across every location in the system.
The result is a model that pairs clinical rigor with genuine warmth and backs it up with a 99.7% shift fulfillment rate that reflects the reliability families depend on most.
Building the System Behind the Brand
The original growth plan for 2nd Family didn’t involve franchising at all. Chad and Josh had mapped out a regional expansion through satellite offices, keeping operations close to home and under direct control. What changed their thinking was something they kept observing in the senior care market: locally owned businesses, operated by people personally invested in their communities, consistently delivered a better experience than their corporate-managed counterparts. Franchising offered both a more scalable path and a more reliable way to protect the quality of care the brand was built on.
With support from franchise development firm iFranchise Group, they spent 2018 building the foundation of the system, sold their first territory in 2019, and opened their first franchise location in January 2020. Over time, the pieces came together, and today, 2nd Family has grown to 25 franchise owners covering 47 sold territories in markets from Washington state to Florida, with a target of reaching roughly 100 territories by the end of this year.
The search for legal counsel ran parallel to those early franchise development efforts, and it led them to Spadea Lignana. Founding partner Tom Spadea connected well with Chad and Josh from their first conversations around 2018 and 2019. The firm’s Philadelphia address wasn’t far from their Baltimore home base, and there was genuine rapport from the start. After those initial discussions, Tom reached out to suggest an in-person meeting, mentioning he expected to be in the Baltimore area. They met, the conversation moved things forward, and the partnership was formed. About a year into working together, the story came out: Tom hadn’t had other business in Baltimore that day. He had made the drive specifically to see them.
That kind of commitment has defined the relationship ever since. Spadea Lignana manages state regulatory filings, tracks evolving franchise law across jurisdictions, and brings counsel that extends well beyond franchise-specific issues when the situation calls for it. The firm’s fixed monthly fee structure adds a layer of financial predictability that standard billable-hour arrangements rarely provide. “They’ve always been available,” Josh says. “They’ve given us really good legal advice over the years.”
Scaling With Intention
The senior care industry is at an inflection point that Chad and Josh have been watching closely. Facility capacity is not keeping pace with the wave of aging adults who will need care in the coming years, and both founders believe home-based care will absorb much of that demand. They are staying close to advocacy groups and industry developments to ensure 2nd Family is positioned when the landscape shifts.
Beyond the numbers, the legacy Chad and Josh are building is rooted in who joins the system. Nearly every franchisee in the network came in with a personal connection to senior care. That alignment of mission and ownership, they believe, is what will define 2nd Family long after the growth targets are met and help their business continue to set the pace for the industry.
