SilverRide is a San Francisco company that is meeting the lifestyle transportation needs of hundreds of older adults—and attracting recognition for its success.

SilverRide won the 2009 Business of the Year award, small business category, of the American Society on Aging (ASA), which lauded its “originality, innovation, and effectiveness in meeting the needs of seniors.” This past spring, the company was named a 2010 Entrepreneur Magazine Top 100 Brilliant Idea, and this summer it won a 2010 STAR (Senior Transportation Action Response) Award from the Beverly Foundation. And the awards keep coming: just this week, SilverRide was named the First Place Home Care Program in San Francisco in the JWeekly newspaper of Northern California’s People’s Choice Awards.

The word “lifestyle” is not normally paired with “transportation,” but founders Jeff Maltz and Susan Steiner Saal say the word is essential to describing what they’re all about.

“SilverRide is a senior lifestyles services company providing transportation, accompaniment, and lifestyle management to clients, including concierge services, activity planning, and other product and service referrals,” they said.

Clients receive door-through-door (even “arm-through-arm”) service; have access to one-way, round-trip, or multi-stop rides; and can have their “SilverRide Lifestyle Companion” wait with them wherever they go or even participate with them in a fun activity. It’s in the job description that all companions be engaging, interesting people who are able to socialize and relate to seniors of all different backgrounds and abilities.

Current companions include an inventor; a singer-songwriter; several professional photographers, videographers, and producers; a Buddhist monk; a pastor; retired persons; and several students pursuing various masters and doctoral programs. All companions are fingerprinted, undergo extensive background checks, and take significant levels of transfer training and senior sensitivity training.
 
Outings are managed by SilverRide Travel Concierges. They maintain confidential member profiles that include client destination preferences, frequently visited locations, and payment preferences to ease the booking and payment processes. The concierges are trained to communicate clearly, patiently, and compassionately with older adults and to provide appointment reminders and check-ins as requested.

Trips are cashless, meaning they are billed to a credit card on file or deducted from a prepaid balance, and the companions do not accept tips.

In addition to routine kinds of destination rides, SilverRide provides weekly group social events, activity planning for private excursions, and courier services. In fact, over 70% of SilverRide clients use the service for lifestyle-related social activities to help stay connected to the outside world and to their friends and family. At least monthly, SilverRide offers a “Signature Events” series, which are group events for 15-50 seniors. Past excursions have included museum tours, trips to local tea houses, scenic drives, and tours of historical sites.

All clients are required to become members to receive service. Membership is free and involves an in-person meeting with SilverRide staff to best determine a client’s situation and needs. The client experience is a continually evolving situation that the staff actively manages with members and their care managers, friends, and family.