A Message from President Lindy Tentinger October 2026: Keeping You at the Center in a Complex and Artificial World

Published in Member Communities on October 07, 2026

By Lindy Tentinger, President, VGM & Associates

I recently took my four-year-old son to his first Iowa Hawkeye football game. It happened to be the Iowa versus Ohio State game, so it was quite an introduction to Kinnick Stadium and Hawkeye football. I was born with black-and-gold blood, thanks to my parents, and sharing that experience with him and the rest of our kids meant more to me than I can put into words. 

Iowa football has always represented something bigger to me than what happens on the field. The program is built on legacy, tradition, integrity, fundamentals, and consistency. It is not always pretty, and, as a fan, it has certainly given me more than a few heart palpitations over the years, but it has real, human heart. It knows what it stands for and does not waver from those values, even in a college football world where it can sometimes feel like dollar signs determine who builds a national championship team. 

What mattered most to my son that day, though, was not the opponent, the score, or even the football. It was the Wave. He wanted to know everything about it. Why did people wave? Who were the kids in the hospital? Why were they there? Were they there alone? When was it going to happen? He kept asking until the end of the first quarter drew closer. I literally had to tell him how many minutes were left almost every second of the first quarter, to be exact. 

When he and his sister visited the merchandise stand, he chose a giant foam finger over everything else because he wanted the kids in the hospital to see him waving. And when the time came, he waved with everything he had. He truly believed they would see him among the thousands of people in the stadium, and for those few minutes, making sure they knew he was thinking about them mattered more to him than anything happening on the field. 

That moment will forever stay in my heart. In a stadium filled with noise, competition, tradition, and tens of thousands of people, a four-year-old understood what mattered. The attention moved away from the game and toward real children and families facing some of life’s hardest challenges, greatest unknowns, and most overwhelming stress. The Wave is powerful because it is completely human. It reminds us that no matter how big the stage becomes, people are still what matter most. 

I have been thinking about that experience a lot lately, especially as I have heard a similar comment from several customers: “Things are looking different at VGM. You have had a lot of change in people and across the organization.” 

My response is always honest. Yes, we have, and it has been intentional. 

Change is hard, even when you understand why it is necessary and believe it is right. It asks people to let go of what is familiar, build new relationships, learn new ways of working, and trust a direction before every detail is visible. Our employee owners have lived through that process, and I know many of you have noticed it from the outside. We have not been changing for the sake of doing something different. We have been willing to change because we believe we can serve you better, bring more value to your business, and strengthen the role VGM plays across this industry. 

Starting With Your Experience 

Over time, VGM has built an incredible amount of expertise, services, resources, communities, relationships, and partnerships. We have people who understand home medical equipment and non-acute care because they have spent their careers working in and alongside the industry. We are proud of what we have built, but we also needed to be honest with ourselves about whether all that value was as easy for you to understand and access as it should be. 

If you are running a business, managing employees, dealing with reimbursement pressure, supporting referral partners, evaluating technology, and caring for patients every day, how easy is it to find what you need from us? If you bring us a problem, do you know where to begin? If several parts of VGM can help, are we making those connections for you, or are we expecting you to understand our internal structure before you can benefit from our expertise? 

Those questions sound basic, but they pushed us to look at ourselves differently. You should not have to understand our organizational chart to get an answer. You should not have to make several calls to reach the right expert or know the exact name of a VGM program before we can help you. You should be able to tell us what you are working through and trust us to listen, understand the need, and help connect the dots. 

Before we could talk about VGM in a simpler and clearer way externally, we needed to do the more difficult work internally. We needed to align teams, clarify responsibilities, connect capabilities, and think about your entire experience rather than only the portion owned by one department or business. We could not place a new message around the same experience and expect it to feel different to you. 

Some of the changes you have seen may have looked like people changes or organizational decisions. All of them were customer decisions. We were asking how we could help you reach the right expert sooner, find a practical answer more easily, understand the resources available to you, and benefit from more of what VGM can bring to your business. That work has required difficult conversations, thoughtful decisions, and a willingness from our employee owners to work differently. I am incredibly proud of how they have embraced that responsibility. 

The Heart Behind the Strategy 

Part of the reason this matters so much to me comes from how I grew up. My parents owned an electrical business in a small Iowa town where your brand was your reputation, and customer service was not a department or a strategy. It was simply how they operated. If someone lost power, they answered the phone. If a city had an electrical emergency, they showed up. If someone needed help late at night or on a weekend, the plans our family had made often changed. 

That was not always easy on our family, and I know many HME providers understand that in a deeply personal way. Your businesses are often local and family-owned. The people you serve are not anonymous customers. They are your neighbors, people you see at the grocery store, families you know, and sometimes members of your own family. Your reputation is personal because the work is personal. 

You deliver hospital beds when patients need them, and that need does not always arrive during normal business hours. You show up when a family is facing a frightening diagnosis, a difficult discharge, or a tragedy they never expected. When products are in short supply, you call each other, share what you have, and work together to make sure patients are cared for. You go above and beyond because the work matters, even when reimbursement is difficult, the paperwork is overwhelming, and doing the right thing is not the easiest or most profitable choice. 

That is what I watched my parents do in their own business. They kept the customer at the center because people were counting on them, and responding was the right thing to do. Their business succeeded because customers knew they could be trusted to answer, take responsibility, and follow through. I remember that “getting bills out” was a phrase my siblings and I heard very often. Because often it was the last thing they had time to do. And it often meant our cash flow suffered a bit. It meant a delayed shopping trip, a skipped vacation, or “let’s wait and see” kind of moments. I also vividly remember when someone declared bankruptcy and the business was out over $50,000 in the 1990s. I see that same heart in our members every day. It is one of the reasons I care so deeply about protecting and strengthening this industry. 

VGM has always viewed its role as being bigger than any individual product, program, service, or transaction. We believe we have a duty to support the strength and future of this industry, and that commitment influences where we invest our time, resources, relationships, and voice. 

We invest significantly back into this industry, probably far more than we give ourselves credit for out loud. We invest in advocacy, education, communities, events, research, partnerships, business solutions, associations, and opportunities that bring people together. Not every investment creates an immediate or easily measurable return for VGM, but we continue making them because we believe stronger providers and manufacturers lead to stronger access to care, stronger patient outcomes, and a healthier healthcare ecosystem. 

I share that because I want you to see the heart behind our strategy and behind our employee owners. The decisions we make are not made with only VGM in mind. They are made by people who care deeply about this industry, understand what is at stake, and believe our responsibility extends beyond our own organization. 

That is not always an easy seat to sit in. Providers, manufacturers, vendor partners, referral sources, payers, policymakers, and other stakeholders can have different needs and perspectives. Sometimes those interests align naturally, and sometimes they do not. There are decisions where the easiest answer for VGM may not be the best answer for the broader industry. There are moments when doing what is right requires patience, courage, investment, and a willingness to think beyond the next transaction or quarter. 

We do not always get everything right, but we take this responsibility seriously. VGM sits at the intersection of so many relationships, challenges, and opportunities across healthcare. That gives us a perspective few organizations have, along with a responsibility to connect people, elevate issues, invest in solutions, and help move the industry forward. I believe VGM’s presence is vital to this ecosystem, and I want us positioned to fulfill that role well for many years to come. 

Going Back to Basics 

The work happening inside VGM may be complex, but what guides it is very basic. Listen first. Understand the problem before offering a solution. Make it clear where to begin. Do not ask the customer to carry complexity that we should be managing ourselves. Stay involved until the customer reaches the right person instead of simply pointing them in another direction. 

Those principles may sound simple, but they are easy to lose when organizations become busy, sophisticated, and layered. They are also increasingly important in a world where so much can feel artificial. Information is everywhere. Technology can produce more content, more options, and more answers than any of us can reasonably sort through. Those tools have tremendous value, but more information does not always create more clarity. 

Human relationships and real expertise matter even more in that environment. When you come to VGM, you are not artificial to us. You are a real person leading a real business, supporting real employees, serving real patients, and making real decisions that affect your family and community. You do not need a generic answer that could apply to anyone. You need someone who understands this industry, listens to what you are facing, and can help you decide what makes sense for your business. 

That human connection has always been one of the things that makes VGM special. The work we are doing is meant to make those relationships and that expertise easier to reach. We want our structure to support the relationship rather than stand in its way. We want technology to help us serve you better without making your experience feel less personal. We want the many parts of VGM to work more intentionally together around what you are trying to accomplish. 

What Comes Next 

In the coming weeks, you will begin to see an external expression of a great deal of work that has already taken place inside VGM. We may look different, and the way we talk about who we are and how we can help will become simpler, clearer, and more connected. What you see externally is not where this work began. It is the result of the internal work our employee owners have done to better align around you. 

The relationships you value are not becoming less personal. The experts you trust are not going away, and neither is our commitment to advocacy, education, service, and connection. We are not trying to become something unrecognizable. We are bringing more of VGM together so you can more easily understand who we are, find what you need, and benefit from the full strength of this organization. 

When someone tells me that things are looking different at VGM, my answer will continue to be yes. The difference is intentional. We have been willing to make difficult changes internally because we believe they will lead to a clearer, more connected, and more valuable experience for you. We have done it because we care deeply about VGM’s responsibility to remain strong, relevant, and fully committed to this industry and the people it serves. 

The external expression may be new, but the belief behind it is not. It is rooted in the same lesson I watched my parents live through their family business and the same lesson my four-year-old understood when he chose that giant foam finger at Kinnick Stadium. He wanted those children to see him because he wanted them to know that someone in that enormous stadium was thinking about them. In his four-year-old mind, that was the most important part of the day, and I think he was right. 

It is also deeply rooted in the vision and values Van G. Miller built VGM on more than four decades ago. Van understood that this organization could be successful by helping others succeed and that relationships, service, trust, and doing the right thing would always matter. Those beliefs shaped VGM’s history, and they still guide how we think about our responsibility to members, vendor partners, employee owners, and the broader industry. 

The world around us has changed dramatically since VGM was founded, and it will continue to change. Our members and vendor partners are navigating pressures, technologies, market forces, and patient expectations that could not have been imagined in VGM’s earliest days. Staying true to Van’s legacy does not mean standing still. It means carrying his values forward while making sure VGM is equipped to help this industry navigate both the realities of today and whatever comes next. 

What we are building is not a departure from our history. It celebrates that history and protects the heart behind it. We are strengthening the connections across our teams, simplifying the experience for our customers, and positioning VGM to continue serving this industry for decades to come without losing the purpose, relationships, and spirit that made this organization special in the first place. 

Keep people at the center. Show up when they need you. Do what is right, even when it is not the easiest choice. Never become so focused on the business, the system, the technology, or the scoreboard that you lose sight of the real people depending on you. 

That is the heart behind what we have been building at VGM. It is the heart I see in our members and vendor partners every day, and it is the heart Van Miller placed at the center of this organization from the very beginning. You have been at the center of this work, and I am excited for you to see what comes next and, more importantly, to experience how it will help us serve you and this industry even better. 

As always, I welcome your thoughts and your perspective. 

Lindy Tentinger 
President, VGM & Associates

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