A Man From A Military Family Finds A Unique Way To Serve Military Families

Jason Roys has had his mind on the military ever since childhood, from when he learned about how his grandfather flew dozens of missions over Germany during World War II in a B-29 Bomber and then served in the Korean War.

Roys’s grandfather started his military career at 17, lying about his age for a good cause to fight in World War II with the US Army Air Corps, which subsequently evolved into the US Air Force. He retired a Chief Master Sergeant.

Roys’s grandparents were both in uniform when they met; both are now interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

Roys himself began his working life at an almost Dickensian age of eight, when he began sweeping houses for his father’s construction company.

When Roys was 14, his parents took him to get a work permit so that he could work legally and start paying taxes.

In addition to working at his father’s construction company and washing dishes in restaurants, Roys began, while still a young teen, to volunteer for the American Red Cross.

Roys recalls that during summers, he would ride to work with his mother, where she worked as a registered nurse in the Air Force, while Roys himself worked in the Records department.

Roys recalls that all this took place before HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was passed, so there was no problem with a teenager handling private medical records.

“I worked with a couple of enlisted people,” Roys recalls, “who taught me the ropes. They took really great care of me. That’s when I first started to understand from the inside what our service people went through.”

A treat for Roys would be M&Ms in boxes with the Presidential Seal from Air Force One or Marine One, courtesy of some of his mother’s colleagues.

The boy who grew up eating Presidential M&Ms and working on the healthcare records of service members ended up running an enterprise with over 150 employees that supports the military’s healthcare system by managing dozens of applications related to healthcare.

These days, Roys’s company provides the information systems utilized by more than 2,000 medical management professionals supporting more than 2.5 million beneficiaries who are active duty, non-active duty, and family members of service people.

Along the way, Roys began to learn about Fisher House, where families of military members and veterans can stay free of charge while a loved one is receiving care in a nearby hospital.

“Fisher House locations are co-located with military and VA medical centers all over the US and in the UK,” Roys says. “And they have saved the families of military members and veterans more than half a billion dollars in out-of-pocket costs for lodging and transportation.”

Fisher Houses have up to 21 suites, with private bedrooms and baths. Families share a common kitchen, laundry facilities, and friendly dining rooms and living rooms.

Fisher Houses developed when Pauline Trost, the wife of the chief of naval operations, back in 1986, watched a family exit a helicopter with their luggage at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

She wondered where they would stay, since hotels in the D.C. area are not cheap.

She mentioned this to her husband, who told a friend, who happened to be a builder.

That friend, Zach Fisher, dedicated more than $20 million to the construction of “comfort homes” for families of hospitalized military personnel to stay free of charge in support of their loved ones when they need it the most.

Fisher House has become a mission for Jason Roys.

His companies donate large amounts of money consistently to Fisher House, and he’s always advocating for others to do the same.

“When you think about what our service people and veterans have sacrificed,” Roys says, “giving them a place to stay when they’re going through often tough medical procedures is really the least that our society can do.”

You can learn more about Fisher House, and you can donate, at fisherhouse.org.