Pauline Nganga has been a resident of Federal Way for 18 years.

Before that, she was born and raised in Kenya with her parents and her siblings.

She now owns her own business, Diligent Healthcare Staffing, a temp agency that provides nurses to hospitals, care clinics, and nursing homes. Nganga started this company in June 2017 after she received the proper licenses.

Her first experience with the healthcare field was as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) after she moved to the United States. She moved up in the nursing ranks to become an LPN and an RN eventually.

As an RN, she was a care manager at the nursing home she worked at, and later was promoted to director of nursing and then regional director.

She’s been in the health field for 15 years, but couldn’t ignore another passion of hers.

“I’ve always had a strong entrepreneurial streak in me,” she said.

Because of this, in 2012 she decided to start her own line of scrub uniforms. This didn’t become her main focus though, and she continued working as a nurse.

And then last year, this project (Diligent Healthcare Staffing) fell in her lap, and she decided to see where she could go with it.

“I didn’t have any employees until September first last year … and now we are in the hundreds,” Nganga said.

Her company helps place RNs, LPNs, and CNAs with different healthcare facilities around the region, and she has also opened a location in Oregon.

Nganga works with different hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities to determine staffing needs and then helps supply them with her own nurses, all of whom are certified.

While Nganga mostly helps staff temporary workers, on some occasions the facilities will request to hire on one of her staff members full-time.

Moving from Kenya to the United States was a bit of a culture shock for her, but she had family over here when she moved.

“My uncle came here in 1997, my mom came in 1998, and then I came in 2000,” she said.

Because she never had the luxuries in Kenya she has here, Nganga believes this helped her work harder in school and in her jobs.

“It was like hitting the ground running.” she said, “When I was a CNA I had three jobs, I paid my way through nursing school. The whole experience is really fulfilling.”

For more information about Diligent Healthcare Staffing, visit www.dhscare.com.