Jaime Wasden-Ryum, Executive Director of Mountain View Hospice & Co-owner of H20 n Go (Image provided.)
Most small business owners know the feeling of carrying a massive load. But Jaime Wasden-Ryum carries a weight most of us can barely imagine. As the owner and Executive Administrator of Mountain View Hospice, a nurse-owned and operated facility in Peoria, Arizona, she spends her days managing the medical, operational, and profound emotional realities of end-of-life care. Then, she switches gears and helps run H2O N Go, a family- and veteran-operated shop serving purified water and Thrifty Ice Cream in nearby Surprise.
At first glance, hospice care and an ice cream shop have absolutely nothing in common. But if you sit down with Jaime, you realize quickly that both businesses are built on the exact same foundation: showing up for the community in practical ways.
“Hospice requires heart, but it also requires structure, compliance, leadership, staffing, financial resilience, and the humility to keep learning.” Jaime Wasden-Ryum
Mountain View Hospice Team (Provided)
The Reality of Hospice Care
Jaime didn’t just wake up one day and decide to start a hospice company. Her background is in emergency, trauma, flight nursing, and hospice case management. She saw the medical system from the inside out and realized that families were often left to figure out some of the hardest moments of their lives completely alone.
She built Mountain View Hospice on a simple rule: answer the phone, show up, explain what is happening, and treat every patient like family. But wanting to do good work and actually running a compliant, financially sound medical business are two entirely different things.
Jaime is quick to point out that good intentions aren’t enough to keep a business running. There were seasons where the responsibility of caring for patients, managing staff, and making the math work felt crushing. Her solution was extreme ownership. When things went wrong, she didn’t blame the economy or the industry. She looked inward, tightened her systems, and refused to lower her standard of care.
That accountability bleeds directly into her community work. She is heavily involved in caregiver education, Alzheimer’s Association support groups, Dementia Friendly communities, and Memory Cafes. She recognized early on that trust is built long before a family actually needs hospice services. Caregivers need someone to sit with them and explain the medical realities so they don’t feel like they are failing.
“We had to learn extreme ownership: if something was not working, we could not blame the economy, the industry, or the circumstances. We had to ask, ‘What can we own? What can we improve?’” Jaime Wasden-Ryum
Left, Outside H20 n Go, Right, Inside H20 n Go, 2023 (Images provided)
A Different Kind of Care
Running a hospice requires intense clinical leadership and careful finances. Running H2O N Go requires consistency, cleanliness, and making sure a kid getting a scoop of ice cream leaves smiling.
Located on West Cactus Road, H2O N Go is a completely different speed. They provide reverse osmosis and alkaline water, ice, and classic Thrifty Ice Cream. But for Jaime, the shop is just another vehicle for service.
You can see this clearly in how she uses the store for community events. Take the Back-to-School Confidence Drive, for example. On a Friday night in July, H2O N Go opened its doors to offer free clothing and back-to-school items for kids from kindergarten through high school. There were no income requirements, no forms to fill out, and zero judgment. It is a practical, dignified way to help families start the school year feeling good. Sometimes support looks like answering hard questions about dementia, and sometimes it just looks like helping a kid find a pair of shoes for the first day of class.
“Sometimes support looks like hospice education. Sometimes it looks like a child finding clothes for school or a family walking into a local store and feeling welcomed.” Jaime Wasden-Ryum
Stewardship and Legacy
Keeping the doors open for both businesses takes serious discipline and faith. Jaime views her operations as forms of stewardship.
“Faith is at the center of how I lead. I believe business is stewardship. We are responsible for the people God places in front of us, whether that is a patient on hospice, a caregiver who is exhausted, an employee who needs guidance, or a child coming through a community event needing school clothes.“ Jaime Wasden-Ryum
That belief drives how she leads under pressure and how she makes the hard calls when no one is watching. She isn’t just trying to make a living. She wants Mountain View Hospice to be known as the company that changed how West Valley families experience end-of-life care—making it personal, responsive, and educated. For her community projects, she wants local partners to work together instead of separately to rally around seniors and kids.
And for her family, she hopes her dual ventures teach her children and grandchildren a vital lesson about entrepreneurship. It is about courage, sacrifice, and building something that actually matters to the people around you.
Follow Jamie’s Businesses
Visit the Mountain View Hospice in Surprise, AZ website.
Check out their social pages on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Visit the H20 n Go in Surprise, AZ website.
Check out their social pages on Facebook and Instagram.
