Louise Woerner is the Founder and Executive Board Chair of HCR Home Care, which she founded in 1978 with three employees, and now employs over 800 across New York State. She also serves as a volunteer in the role of President of HCR Cares, a 501(c)3 she founded in 1979, which partners with HCR.

Ms. Woerner has received many honors including Rochester Institute of Technology's Herbert W. VandenBrul Award for Entrepreneurship and is the first living woman to be inducted into the Rochester Business Hall of Fame. Other distinctions include the Presidential Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence, presented by President Ronald Reagan.

A leader in health care and nursing, Ms. Woerner is the Founding Director and First President of the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research (FNINR), and holds many awards from nursing, including the Archon Award for Service to the Nursing Community by Sigma Theta Tau International, as well as an honorary membership in the organization. She was the first non-nurse inducted into the American Academy of Nursing. She has served on the National Advisory Boards for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on the Nursing Shortage and in Nursing Leadership. Ms. Woerner has spoken and written widely. She has been published in more than 50 professional and technical publications.

Ms. Woerner served two terms on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Buffalo Branch, the Small Business Advisory Board for the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and the Advisory Board for Chase Lincoln Bank of New York (now JP Morgan Chase). Ms. Woerner has also served as an advisor to the Governor of New York and the Director of the New York State Health Department.

Her Board work includes service on the Board of Directors for First Niagara Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ FNFG), the Center for Governmental Research, and the Board of Directors for AAA of Western and Central New York. Ms. Woerner also served as a board member for the NYS Health Foundation and the Hitachi Foundation.

Ms. Woerner has an MBA from the University of Chicago (accelerated program) and a BS, cum laude from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She received an honorary Doctorate of Human Letters from Nazareth College in 2010.