Corporate Wellness Business to Move Into Sunset Hills

A 20-year-old family startup that grew into a multi-million-dollar health and wellness company is set to move into Sunset Hills's former Anheuser-Busch offices at 3660 S. Geyer Rd.

H&H Health Associates Inc. is scheduled to make the move Aug. 1, after renovation of 5,000 square feet on the ground floor of the building where A-B Container Division was housed.

H&H employs about 20 people on site and has a network of nurses, clinics, and mental health professionals and counselors nationwide. The business provides employee wellness and counseling services often linked with other corporate insurance plans.

Kevin Hobart, director of sales and marketing for H&H, said the group had focused on the I-270 and 1-44 corridor by the time it contacted a broker to locate the space. They move up from St. Louis County near I-55 at Lindbergh Boulevard.

"We're looking forward to it," Hobart said of the move.

Hobart said his mother Donna Hobart, a nurse, started the wellness program two decades ago when the "wellness" aspect to corporate insurance coverage was not necessarily commonplace.

As insurance costs have risen, companies have turned to wellness programs and incentives to keeping a workforce healthy and premiums low, Hobart said, especially over the past 10 years.

He said his father, Tim Hobart, started the counseling services aspect of Health Associates—something now typically called employee assistance program, or EAP. These services cover drug and alcohol counseling, job and family stress and others.

The younger Hobart, Kevin, said part of the wellness plan includes offering employees blood testing on a yearly basis when time to enroll in a company insurance plan comes around.

While the information is kept private from the employer, he said, employees who participate and show good health, are rewarded with a "preferred" insurance premium for the year, in contrast to a "standard" rate.

Hobart said H&H Health Associates works with Scottrade, for example, and Panera franchises in the Midwest.

Contact information: 1-800-832-8302.