By Amanda Wegner | Photo courtesy Amie Neumaier
Ask Amie Neumaier, Ashley Rodriguez, Megan Ryan and Julie Lombardo why they got into the wellness space, and the answer is personal. Each came to the industry through lived experience and has since built a thriving, multi-location business.
Seeking a Better Experience
For Neumaier, founder of ANEU Med Spa, a medical spa and wellness clinic with locations in McFarland and on Madison’s far West Side, starting her business was “a progression.” Trained in acute-care rehab, she fell for aesthetics in 2005 and spent years earning certifications. Then a 2020 breast cancer diagnosis reshaped her mission.
“It was a very eye-opening experience to the level of, frankly, gaslighting that I feel women experience in health care today,” says Neumaier.
That realization pushed her beyond cosmetic work toward preventative care, including medical weight loss and hormone optimization. Today she’s a nurse practitioner and certified aesthetic nurse specialist. She sees ANEU, which serves preteens to octogenarians, partly as a buffer against an overtaxed system where rushed appointments leave patients unheard.
“It is a broken system,” she says of traditional health care. “You can’t deliver exceptional care.”
Rodriguez spent 16 years in radiology before co-founding Carbon World Health with her husband, Dr. Nestor Rodriguez. Now in Madison and Sun Prairie, Carbon is a physician-led longevity center blending advanced diagnostics, hormone therapy, fitness, recovery and aesthetics.
“I saw incredible medicine daily, but I also saw how much of our health care system focuses on treating disease after it happens rather than preventing it in the first place,” says Rodriguez.
Ryan’s route to business ownership was the least expected. Formerly a Los Angeles reality-TV producer and actor, she tried hot yoga to destress after a colleague recommended it.
“[The class] was excruciatingly challenging — I didn’t think I would make it through to the end,” she recalls.
“But I slept so well that night and I felt so good.”
Her two-week trial pass turned into two years.
Once she moved back to Wisconsin, Ryan couldn’t find a studio accessible and welcoming enough to bring her friends and family. So in 2011, she opened Dragonfly Hot Yoga, a yoga and fitness studio built to be cozy and welcoming, with one guiding phrase: “Every shape, every size, every person.”
Lombardo’s inspiration came from a model she’d left behind. Before moving to Madison, the physical therapist had practiced in another state at an open- gym concept clinic — therapists working side by side with patients in a shared space, with private rooms available when needed.
“There was an energy and camaraderie to it, patients cheering each other on, that’s hard to recreate when every visit happens behind a closed door,” she says.
When she couldn’t find that model in Madison, she replicated it, founding Capitol Physical Therapy in Verona in 2004. The outpatient practice serves athletes of all ages and activity levels, addressing sports and work injuries, women’s health conditions and other pain and mobility issues.
Building the Business
Starting a new business is never easy.
Neumaier navigated a non-compete agreement with her former employer that boxed her into an unlikely first location.
“McFarland was the only town inside Dane County that wasn’t in a cornfield that was logistically respecting my non-compete,” she says. She funded ANEU’s first location with a home equity line of credit and a bank loan she paid off in six and a half years instead of 10. Now she’s focused on maximizing ANEU’s two clinics rather than expanding.
Launching just after the 2008 recession, Ryan was turned down by many banks before securing a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan to open her first location in Fitchburg. Ryan says being a female business owner who was presenting a somewhat newer concept at the time was challenging to pitch.
But pitching got easier with success and Dragonfly now has five locations: Fitchburg, Verona, downtown Madison, Middleton and East Madison. Its near-term growth will focus on expanding and aligning services at those sites.
Rodriguez and her husband started their business by personally guaranteeing SBA loans through U.S. Bank.
“Like many entrepreneurs, we believed in the vision long before anyone else did,” she says. As Carbon has grown, the Rodriguezes have become more strategic about expansion, forming partnerships and bringing in investors aligned with their vision.
That vision includes a third location, which will soon open in Wisconsin Dells.
Lombardo self-funded her business, using personal savings as well as traditional small business loans, then grew by reinvesting profits. The practice has grown to six locations and Lombardo is now focused on growing leaders within Capitol Physical Therapy.
“Some of our biggest growth in recent years hasn’t come from opening new locations at all — it’s come from serving more patients within the clinics we already have, which tells us we’re doing something right. Our focus going forward is on developing great leaders, mentoring the next generation of physical therapists and continually improving the patient experience, because growth only means something if we can sustain the quality of care behind it,” says Lombardo.
Growing a Legacy
For these women, being a female entrepreneur is more of an asset than an obstacle.
Neumaier sees her gender as an advantage: “I have a lot of patients who want to come to a female business owner in this community.”
Rodriguez admits feeling underestimated at times, “but I’ve learned to let results speak louder than assumptions.”
Ryan is blunter: “We can be underestimated and, while that’s unfortunate and not right, sometimes that’s an advantage… they don’t see us coming.”
For Neumaier and Rodriguez, the most rewarding part is the people they serve.
“Without question, it’s seeing lives change,” says Rodriguez. “Whether someone loses 100 pounds, regains confidence after struggling with hormones, improves their health markers or simply starts feeling like themselves again, those transformations are why we do this.”
Adds Neumaier: “Our patients fuel my joy and passion. Without them, I wouldn’t be doing this.”
Ryan treasures watching clients grow into teachers and is proud that Dragonfly has remained a local family business for 15 years.
“Dragonfly means something to people. I can’t think of a better thing to be a part of,” she says.
Similarly, Lombardo measures success in people, not locations:
“If 20 years from now people still say Capitol Physical Therapy is the place where patients feel genuinely cared for and employees love coming to work, I’ll consider that our greatest success.”
