Company Origins

The origins of Bright Horizons Family Solutions date back a dozen years to the founding of two companies with remarkably similar goals and histories: Bright Horizons Inc. and Corporate Childcare Development, Inc. Both companies saw an opportunity in the growing trend of corporate-sponsored child-care. Throughout the 1980s, companies experimented with ways to attract and hold employees, particularly women. Along with an increased willingness to accommodate flexible scheduling of work hours, job sharing, and telecommuting, more and more companies were establishing work-site day care for the children of their employees. Setting up and running such a center, however, was quite outside the expertise of most companies, requiring them to learn labyrinthine government regulations and to hire and train caregivers.
Bright Horizons, Inc. was designed to provide the expertise needed to set up and manage these corporate day care centers. Founded in 1987, Bright Horizons was the brainchild of husband-and-wife team Linda Mason and Roger Brown. At the time, Brown worked as a management consultant for Bain & Company in Boston. Brown and Mason established the company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and took advantage of the large urban hub of Boston to find clients. Its first major community service program, the Horizons Initiative, also served the greater Boston area. Beginning in 1988, it provided child-care and other services for homeless children.