This story is part of our March 2026 issue. To read the print version, click here.

Leticia Robles

President and founder, Pacific Homecare Services

Leticia Robles, founder and president of Pacific Homecare Services, remembers the moment when she knew she could offer her region a service it needed. It was 2005, and she was working as a Spanish interpreter for Valley Mountain Regional Center in Stockton, one of 21 regional centers around California that coordinates the delivery of services for people with developmental disabilities.

“I was interpreting for this mom who was struggling to get services through the regional center,” Robles remembers. “I stopped in the middle of the whole thing, and I turned to her service coordinator and asked, ‘Why does she have to struggle so much? Why can’t she use an agency here in town?’” The coordinator explained that there was no agency in town that offered the services she needed, so they were working with one in Southern California.

“When I saw how much she desperately needed somebody to just care for her child with a disability, just so she could take a little break, on my drive home I crafted Pacific Homecare,” she continues. “I thought, I could really do this, and I could do a better job. I’m here local, I speak their language, I understand the culture, and I care about our community.”

Backed with her degree in business administration from University of the Pacific and a $1,000 loan from the savings account she shared with her husband, she got to work designing a system that would connect parents and guardians with local homecare providers in as streamlined and human a way as possible. “I remember the initial calculations that I would run. I just said, ‘You know what, if I break even, at least I’m helping people.’”

Pacific Homecare ended up growing well beyond those initial calculations. The business now has eight locations, including the headquarters in Stockton and branches in Modesto, Sacramento, Pleasanton, Santa Rosa, Salinas, Fairfield and San Jose. Robles manages 110 administrative employees and estimates that she works with thousands of caregivers across Northern California.

“Those are the types of stories that I think will always stay with me. They tell me that I’m at the right business. I want to be doing the right thing, helping people.”

One of those administrative employees is her husband, Jorge Robles, whom she met while they were both students at University of the Pacific. After 22 years as an engineer and project manager at Clorox, Jorge joined Pacific Homecare in 2013 to become the vice president of operations and human resources. Robles credits his support for her success, especially in those early years when his job at Clorox supported them both as she raised their two young daughters and built her business.

She and her husband are active in charities around Stockton, including the Children’s Home of Stockton and United Way of San Joaquin County. They also fund an endowed scholarship for students in the Community Involvement Program at their alma mater — the same program that allowed Robles to go to college as a first-generation college student from the Delta.

After more than two decades connecting people with care, Robles has countless memories of clients she is proud to have been able to help. One that stands out in her mind was an elderly man who lived alone — his family was all in Mexico. Robles took the project on herself. “The first thing I discovered was that he didn’t need personal care. He just needed comfort food and someone he could relate to. So I would order chicken soup from the Mexican store and have certain foods delivered to him, and I would check in every other day.” After three weeks, the man’s voice was so much stronger that Robles didn’t recognize it when she called him on the phone one day.

“He said, ‘I am so much better. Just knowing that you were going to call, that’s what kept me going,’” she says. “Those are the types of stories that I think will always stay with me. They tell me that I’m at the right business. I want to be doing the right thing, helping people.”

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View the list of honorees from 2015 through 2026.

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