2020 Men of the Year: Greg Horton

After gaining nearly four decades of professional experience, Greg Horton is focusing on building up the next generation.

The CEO and co-founder of Integrity Home Care and Hospice says he’s become a mentor in recent years to several young business leaders and entrepreneurs, providing feedback on business plans and helping them navigate challenges.

“It is incredibly fulfilling to help young people pursue their dreams, realizing that their ‘crazy’ visions are actually possible with the right combination of integrity, competence, passion and faith,” Horton says.

Twenty years ago, at the midpoint in his own career, he says he followed a leap of faith after he felt a calling to change the focus of his life.

Horton had joined accounting firm Whitlock, Selim & Keehn LLP – now The Whitlock Co. – in 1981 and later became partner. He says he assisted clients with the emerging “new world” of personal computing, as well as strategic planning for small and midsize businesses.

However, in 2000, he says he made the “uncharacteristically risky” move to leave his work as an accountant and founded Integrity Home Care and Hospice.

“As a firm believer in servant leadership, I was profoundly drawn to the unique selflessness of the amazing individuals who cared for the elderly and disabled in our community through home care and hospice,” he says. “They deserved an employer whose core values recognized the inherent worth of these qualities and committed to fostering a culture that would sustain them.”

Today, Integrity employs 1,088 people serving over 5,000 home health care patients in Missouri and Kansas. In 2019, it recorded $58 million in revenue.

Horton also co-founded Integrity Pharmacy LLC. The integrated medication management company, started in 2008, organizes a month’s worth of pills into sealed packs with dates and times to help the patient track their doses.

“It’s medically critical that the right medications be taken at the right time every day,” he says, noting the operation handles complicated prescription requirements for thousands of patients.

In the community, Horton serves on the board of the Developmental Center of the Ozarks, has been a longtime sponsor of the Price Cutter Charity Championship and helped create the Springfield Generosity Council to encourage business leaders to give back. He also serves on the board of directors for Foundation Capital Resources and Guaranty Bank.

In addition to his professional and civic milestones, Horton says his proudest accomplishments are receiving the 2019 Missourian Award and in 2016 sharing his story of survival from a plane crash with attendees of the Springfield Prayer Breakfast.

He says that plane crash in December 2014 reminded him what matters.

“Through that near tragedy,” he says, “I discovered that the only thing that truly matters in life is the relationships you have with your family, your friends and your creator.”