Senior living leadership – What’s that?

If you were to ask high school students their thoughts about pursuing careers in senior living leadership, they would probably ask, “What’s that?”

Worse yet, they may scrunch their noses and make offhanded comments about not wanting to work in a nursing home, voice that their options would be limited or create dismissive comments about negative stories they caught in the news.

Senior living may not seem cool to many teenagers, but interning in the field has been an awesome experience for us. More students should jump on the bandwagon.

Our journey into senior living

We are two college students, both of us currently working at the Vision Centre: Leadership Development for Aging Services initiative, a group that encourages others to enter the field of senior living and care administration.

Both of our paths are different, but we both were drawn to the aging services field to make an impact on the lives of older adults.

Lily came into the field after first considering a career in banking. Riley is the daughter of a continuing care retirement community administrator, someone who grew up around the field and knew both the work environment and the inherent rewards.

We know many friends who are among the nose-scrunchers. But we also know the truth about this field — and we want to spread the word.

Getting more students interested in the field of senior living leadership

As many well know, the field of senior living leadership is flooded with misconceptions, such as: nursing homes are where people go to die; senior living communities are untrustworthy, especially in light of COVID-19; and the field of healthcare administration doesn’t offer as many opportunities as does a business degree.

Those misconceptions, however, couldn’t be further from the truth and not only push negative information onto prospective students in the senior living leadership field but also trickle into the mainstream media.

But through various grassroots and organizational efforts, leaders in senior living and students in the field can begin to shift the narrative.

Here are a few ways to accomplish that goal:

1. Offer and advertise paid field experiences/internships.

More students would consider the field of aging services if paid field experiences were more readily available. It can be difficult — or even impossible — to commit to an internship without pay and housing, especially if one is juggling rent and tuition.

Moreso than just the pay, it’s critical to share what field experiences can look like and how meaningful such experiences can be. School is great, and a degree is important, but the majority of applicable lessons are learned in the field. For example, there’s a difference between talking about staffing ratios in class and coming into the workplace where an administrator is down two nurses and determining how to handle that tricky situation.

Additionally, it would be meaningful if students understood how hands-on their field experiences would be. You really get to understand day-to-day operations and focus on what an administrator role looks like. You get to oversee multiple departments and understand how a community operates in general. It really can broaden your scope of what your opportunities can be after graduation.

2. Share positive stories on social media, the web and in earned media outlets.

For high school students, perceptions of the field can hold much weight, even within their own households. If parents have negative views of the aging services field, then those views could deter a young adult from picking senior living leadership as a major, because parents hold much influence on their children’s decisions.

So much negativity is flooding the newsfeeds and influencing those perceptions. People may see one story about mismanagement of a senior living community, but they don’t realize that the story involved one community out of all of the communities in an entire state. So they gain a perception that senior living communities and nursing homes are horrible, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.

It’s important to show stories about senior living communities that empower people to be independent, foster opportunities for a social life or create openings for lifelong learning. Those stories, over time, will start to shift the narrative. Additionally, more advertising that depicts older adults who are active and are thriving in senior living (while being honest) really will help.

Finally, playing into TikTok and Facebook and other social media avenues can assist. Anyone scrolling on Facebook will see those positive stories pop onto their feed, and if more communities stepped up to share their stories, and what’s working, and how they’re improving their communities, then the perceptions will start to move toward the positive.

3. Partner with high schools to offer volunteer hours and paid opportunities.

Many high schools mandate community service hours for students. Sometimes, those hours are built into an elective path. For example, at some high schools, senior students participate in certified nursing assistant rotations.

Senior living communities should proactively try to present those opportunities to high school classrooms. By offering their campuses as spaces where young people can volunteer or participate in learning experiences, students will be introduced to the field and stigmas will start to break.

Or even offering paid opportunities. If you tell high school students that they can have hospitality jobs that don’t require a big commitment and pay $15 an hour, they will probably sign right up.

Once students engage in those senior living communities and see what those spaces are all about, they will spread the word to their parents and networks and shift the conversation to a positive image in this field.

We need to shift the narrative together

The responsibility to shift the narrative and perceptions of senior living doesn’t fall on one person or organization. Colleges and universities need to advertise their programs more broadly, senior living communities should proactively engage with local high schools, and marketing teams should continue consistently pushing positive stories into the world. 

If we are going to get 16, 17 and 18-year-olds to consider this field, then we need to fill the space with messaging that shows them the opportunities in senior living and the effects that they will have on residents’ lives. Let them know that when they have stressful days at work, they can walk out the door and be greeted by 60 friends who will put smiles on their faces and remind them why they’re there.

If we could go back and speak to ourselves as high school seniors, we’d be reminded of the phrase “Love what you do, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

After all, many of those residents saved their entire lives to enjoy their retirement. Our job as leaders is to provide them with the best experiences possible, including ensuring that we are preparing the leaders of tomorrow right now.

We do love being part of the senior living workforce. We’d say more, but we have to roll up our sleeves and go back to living our dream careers.

Lily Kiffmeyer is an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a student research assistant at the Vision Centre.

Riley Tagatz is a graduate student at Western Kentucky University and a student research assistant at the Vision Centre.

Nancy Swanger, PhD, is the founding director of the Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living and an associate professor in the School of Hospitality Business Management in the Carson College of Business at Washington State University. She recently spent a few minutes with McKnight’s Senior Living discussing what the hospitality and senior living industries can learn from each other and why breathing is “a really great thing.”

Q: You have a lot of experience in the restaurant industry as an owner and operator, among other roles. How did you become interested in senior living?

A: Like almost everyone that I’ve ever known, I fell into senior living quite by accident. In my case, in my personal life, my husband and I have been restaurant operators for almost 40 years, but in my academic world, when I made that switch over, I had been teaching in a hospitality school. I still have my fingers in the hospitality business, but I’m not the manager/operator of the restaurants that we still have today.

In terms of making that leap from restaurants to senior living, that’s not been an operational leap for me. I was the director of the hospitality school for about 10-and-a-half years at Washington State, and ours is the third-oldest hospitality program in the country. We’ve been around since 1932.

Some [senior living] operators from the Puget Sound area in Northwest Washington approached me and said, “Hey, you’ve got this great hospitality program, and we’ve got some senior living operations, and we think we should be collaborating.” And I had zero idea what that even meant. My parents were in their 80s, still living in their own home, and in my very narrow paradigm of the world, all I could think about was skilled nursing, nursing homes. And I thought, “I’m not seeing this big giant leap here of how we’re going to go from hospitality to senior living, but sure, I’ll listen. Here we go.” So then I drank the Kool-Aid, and it’s been a wonderful ride ever since. It’s really been an academic shift and focus for me, not an operational shift.

Q: You knew Granger Cobb. What is it like to be the founding director of an institute named for him?

A: It is really an honor and a privilege and a blessing. And I think those who were fortunate enough to know Granger — he had a heart the size of Manhattan. The guy was just so warm and genuine and so passionate about this industry, and it reminds us every day of the standards we need to uphold.

I think it puts a little bit of burden on us. We don’t want to ever do anything in the work that we’re doing to discredit his name or not honor him in some way. Arms-wrapped-around-us-as-we-do-this is how I would describe it, to make sure that we try and do it the way we’re supposed to be doing it. We have a lot to live up to by having his name — and in a lot of our printed materials, we actually have his signature. We’ve incorporated his actual signature into a lot of our work. And so you see that every day and it’s like, “This is Granger Cobb. We’d better pay attention to the details and get this right.”

Q: The Institute is part of the School of Hospitality Business Management. What do you think the senior living industry can learn from the hospitality industry?

A: A lot of things, and one of them is that in hospitality, we are very much about creating experiences for people that they aren’t able to or don’t want to create on their own.

Even just something as simple as going out for a sandwich. Everyone can make a sandwich at home. Why are they going to go somewhere and pay money for a sandwich? It’s the ambiance, the experience, it’s the person you might be dining with. It’s the servers. It’s a variety of things in those relationships that matter.

I think the exact same holds true in senior living. Care partners and other staff and the executive directors or GMs and all of those people — med techs, everybody who interacts with the resident on a daily basis, and even the other residents — there are opportunities to make their day just a little bit better by going above and beyond. And I think that’s where the intersection between the hospitality and the healthcare piece comes together. And a whole lot of those things don’t cost a dime. Great operators have figured this out, and they’ve hired the right people and put them in places with their residents to create these very meaningful experiences along the way, throughout a day, that they might not even realize are happening but could make a huge difference to the resident and/or their family.

Q: On the flip side, what do you think the hospitality industry could learn from the senior living industry?

A: On the hospitality side, we do everything for everybody in some ways. We know that’s not the best approach in senior living. In senior living, you want to create experiences, but you want those residents to come alongside you, because you want them to maintain their independence, their dignity, their quality of life, along the way.

I think sometimes in hospitality we over-serve. That sounds weird, but there could be some limits or parameters around what we’re doing for meaningful experiences for people. Not that we wouldn’t continue to do those things, but that we should roll those guests into that experience to come right along with us and help us create that as opposed to just doing it all for them.

Q: Medical care, healthcare, is becoming a greater part of senior living than it was in the past. How else has the industry changed since senior living began being taught at your institution?

A: I’m 64 years old, so I’m near the end of the baby boomers. And the baby boomers’ perception of what that industry is was probably very much based on their experience with their grandmas or grandpas. If they couldn’t be at home with family, they were in a nursing home, and that was not a good or pleasant experience.

As an example, I have millennial children. My dad passed away a few years ago. I’m not retired. My mom never even learned how to drive, and so I could not leave her in her home alone. We moved her down here, and she lived in a community near where I work. And so I transitioned a bit and became the adult daughter of a resident. But because of that, my adult children in the area went there to see her all the time. So they have a very different perception about what this industry is or what it might mean, and I think we’re seeing that more and more.

The students I have in class now, the sort of traditional 18- to 22-year-old, may have already been in a senior living community, because they’ve got a loved one there. Also, I have several students who may have had their first job in a senior living community. Maybe they were doing some stuff in food and beverage, or maybe they got a CNA through high school and now are care partners. Whatever it might be.

A shift has occurred over time from that very strict, 24/7, medical model nursing home to a more holistic experience, but the industry itself is transformed in that people aren’t waiting just until they need 24/7 skilled nursing care.

Many years ago, they started into this notion of, “Well, I could be an independent living resident, but if I’m an assisted living resident, there are options for me to get some additional care.”

I do think the level of acuity has increased, and I think you’re seeing some of those health services pushed further down into communities that maybe hadn’t been there before, and I don’t see that going away. I see the industry finding a way to deliver those services to residents in AL communities, or whichever level they’re in, much longer and delaying what might end up being 24/7 skilled nursing or hospice care.

Q: You mentioned students. Do you think the senior living curriculum attracts students to the university or the college or the school? Or is the industry more likely to be something they find out about once they’re there?

A: I think at this point it’s the latter. I want it to be the other way around, but this has been a work in progress.

These industry folks that I talked about, who started this — it was Jerry Meyer, who was at the time COO of Aegis Living; it was Bill Pettit, then-president of Merrill. Gardens; it was Tana Gall, who was the president at the time of Leisure Care; and then it was Granger Cobb, who was the CEO of Emeritus. When they came in about 2009 and those conversations started, we created a course. We did some things, but it’s taken us a long time to get where we are. We’ve actually only had a major in senior living since the fall of 2020, and that wasn’t the best time to be starting a major in senior living.

Before the major started, we created an elective course as an offering in the hospitality school, and it was kind of an introduction to this whole industry. And they flew over the mountains from the west side of Washington to the east side of Washington to teach the class.

I had no clue. I could write up a syllabus and herd the cats and get students to class on time, but I couldn’t teach the content. They did. They sent company executives over all the time.

And so for that elective course, which is the first course in the major sequence, we’ve probably put over 700 students through that class. And they all had to be people who were not majors in senior living, because we didn’t have a major. So, interestingly enough, what it has done is, there are several of those students who were in that class who then discovered there might be a career opportunity for their major that they hadn’t even thought about. And so we do have several former students who are placed in the industry but who don’t actually have the degree. 

The students who came in starting fall 2020, their first option to graduate [with the major] would be spring 2024. We are starting to pick up a little bit. We now have about 15 to 20 students who are somewhere in the system who have said, “I think I want to pursue this as a major.” Whether they’re doing that on the front end or after they’ve been here for a little bit, I’m not sure we know that.

We also have a minor in senior living management. That one started fall 2021 and takes less time to get. We have graduated three students with the minor.

And then we have an online, on-demand, non-credit-bearing certificate program.

Q: What kind of students do you think are attracted to go into the program or into senior living as a career?

A: I think it’s people with varying interests. We had a young young man in our spring session of this class who was in construction management. Interestingly enough, his family is developing senior living communities. That was a nice fit. So it was about a tie of his major to that area.

But in terms of people who want to go out and be in community operations, you have to have the right heart. You can come from lots of areas, across various majors, minors, whatever it might be, but at the end of the day, you’d better have an affinity for an aging population, and that all comes from the heart.

And I think that ties very closely to what we already do in hospitality. I can teach you how to make a bed, and I can teach you how to make a sandwich, and I can teach you how to make change. What I can’t teach you how to do is care, and that holds very true for senior living. If you don’t care, it doesn’t matter what I teach you, this isn’t the place for you. I think a caring heart and an affinity for that population and just the general desire to be of service and help others [are characteristics of those attracted to the industry].

Q: You recently were named to the Board of Trustees of the Vision Centre, which is working to create university and college programs and facilitate internships to prepare future generations of aging services leaders. Congratulations on that.

A: Thank you.

Q: And as you know, recruiting and retaining workers is a top challenge for the industry. What are your hopes for the Vision Centre?

A: I’m really honored to be included. [President and CEO] Doug Olson has done a great job of bringing some key industry people, some key industry partners and some key academic partners together into the same space to try to build this out.

I really see my role as helping us build out other academic programs across the country. No one university is going to handle this work. I don’t care how many graduates you turn out; you are not solving this one on your own. This is one of those things — and I’m as competitive as the day is long; I just should throw that in there — but we aren’t going to win by operating in a silo in this space.

The program we have is different. It was the first of its kind in this country that was housed in a hospitality school in a college of business. So I guess what I hope to do is lend some help for other similar programs, starting sort of with the “low-hanging fruit” of other hospitality programs and saying, “This is a natural extension of your product line. Let’s figure out how we repackage some of the things you have. What do you need to create? How can I maybe help navigate you through this process, because the need is there and what you’re already doing in your hospitality program fits very nicely.”

So that’s what I see as my role, really helping to build out — and maybe create some templates and some how-to, because I didn’t have any of that. It was fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants and listen to the industry. Thank God, they just steered us in the right direction. But [I want] to provide some tools and support for people in programs who want to grow and develop and get into this space, because it’s where all the demand’s going to be.

I tell young people, “For the next 40 years, you can write your own ticket. You do anything in the aging space, you can write your own ticket, because the demand is there.”

Q: Congratulations also on being named to the United Nations Healthy Aging 50 list in 2022. I understand you were one of only four people in the United States to be recognized for “transforming the world to be a better place to grow older.” What do you think needs to happen for the world, and especially the United States, to be a better place to grow older?

A: Thank you for acknowledging that. I was shocked, is probably the best word, and humbled and so honored to be recognized. I think the entire world is in crisis with their aging population. This is not a US-centric issue. There are several countries around the world that are probably in deeper trouble than we are. I think about China. I think about India and what do we need to do?

I think there are several things we need to do. First of all, we need to get rid of the “ism” word and embrace an aging population and realize that some of the solutions to these problems may be with that population in and of itself. That is a group that’s going to need some places to live, some things to do and have a lot of years left in their life that they may be able to contribute back to their society.

I think in the US, we’ve got to get out of that mode that, “Oh well, you’re 65 and you’re done, you’re retired, collect your Social Security,” which may or may not be there, and just go away quietly.

For me, that’s another third of my life I still have to live. I’m not going anywhere if I have anything to say about it, and so I think we need to embrace some of that.

We have older people with so many skills and talents who could be mentoring younger people or mid-career changers or young people in intergenerational-type experiences. All of those things matter.

We also need to look at some things related to immigration reform, related to these workforce challenges. It’s real. And I don’t even want to say that and make it sound like it’s some big political spin, because really it’s not. My understanding is, there’s a clause in a certain visa statement that if we just changed the phrasing just slightly, we could open up some opportunities for people with their visa status to come in and come to work in our communities.

We have to do something. Doing nothing isn’t going to be helpful.

You know the old saying, “Hope is not a strategy.” We have to become more proactive in some of the things we do, both as operators, trade associations, vendor partners and then just sort of as citizens.

We’ve got to realize, if you’re breathing, you’re aging, and that’s a really great thing, because the alternative to that means you’re not going to be blessed with aging. How do we become more active participants in our own lives, in our own communities, to embrace this for what it is and the opportunity it can create?

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to mention that we haven’t discussed so far?

A: The only other thing I would like to say is, I just want to stress how grateful I am for the industry partners who have helped us along the way with the work that we’re trying to do. We have an active steering committee. We have a strategic plan. We have had industry partner involvement — which also includes some association members and some vendor partners — from day one to help us guide this.

We’ll come full circle. My background is restaurants, and my degrees are in education. How did that link me here? I have no idea, but I was, gratefully, able to recognize an opportunity and listen to those fab four folks who came and talked to us early on and listen to them, and we still listen to them. And I think that a key to all of this is just remaining so closely tied to the industry and working with them to help everybody get this right.

This is an expanded, edited version of the conversation that was published in the June print magazine. A podcast of the discussion is available to listen to here.

And more than half of the respondents (56%) said their CFOs would be retiring within 10 years, with almost half of that group expecting retirement in fewer than five years.

For chief operating officers, 43.6% of participants said that those executives at their organizations probably would be retiring within 10 years, with 11.5% putting the timing at fewer than five years.

You can read more about the survey and its findings here, but one thing the results drive home is the need for succession planning — and 62% of the people polled said that their organizations don’t have a formal succession plan for the CEO position.

But just as important as selecting replacements from existing pools of talent is building and expanding the pipeline of leadership candidates for the future — and not just at the very top.

That’s why several leadership-related industry programs are so vital. Some of them include:

• Argentum’s Leadership Advancement & Development (LEAD) program: Selected aspiring leaders nominated by executives at their organizations participate in a six-month program of networking, coaching and professional development opportunities to help support their leadership development and career growth.
• LeadingAge’s Larry Minnix Leadership Academy: A year-long curriculum includes site visits and in-person and virtual meetings to build core skill sets for new leaders or career paths for emerging leaders.
• The American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living’s Future Leaders program: The year-long program kicks off with a two-day symposium; participants then read books and participate in calls to learn about “the latest theories and practical applications in quality management, customer satisfaction and leadership” and serve AHCA/NCAL.
• The National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care’s Future Leaders Council: Over three-year teams, emerging leaders have the chance to polish their leadership skills, develop a network of associates and resources, and help address industry issues through NIC initiatives.
• The Vision Centre: With the backing of organizations mentioned above as well as the American Seniors Housing Association and others, the new center has a mission “to bridge relationships between universities and providers, and build robust, sustainable academic leadership programs that promote and support the field of aging services.” Among specific goals are creating 25 academic programs and 1,000 paid field experiences.

The need for leaders in senior living is not going away. The need for such programs will only grow.

Lois A. Bowers is the editor of McKnight’s Senior Living. Read her other columns here.

My wife recalled my front-door policy and asked that the assisted living community where my dad was a resident respect this request when I was still a bit indisposed after hearing the news of my dad’s passing. This little thing meant a lot to me, and I was glad my wife brought it up. It also got me thinking about the other nuggets of wisdom we have but are not necessarily transferring to the next generation of leaders.

I have been in the senior living business for more than 30 years, and in the past year, the current challenges of senior living became all too apparent … and personal. My sister and I had to move my dad into a senior living community from his home because the home care option was ridiculously expensive, and we also wanted him to be closer to one of us.

My dad ultimately lived in four different senior living communities. In one community, the service was horrendous. The second residence almost killed him, literally, due to an egregious medication error, and the third place could not properly administer the agreed-to individualized service plan or the additional services they promised they would manage.

My takeaway from those experiences? The issue is not necessarily the companies or the programs they have in place. Those were good, reputable companies. The issue, in my opinion, is that we have a phenomenal gap in the transfer of knowledge. I can attribute the failings we experienced at each of these communities to poor management, inexperienced staff or deficiencies in training. 

Whether this fact is due to COVID-19-related staffing issues that the entire industry has experienced, poor retention efforts, substandard hiring practices or just plain bad luck, I am not going to get into those specifics here. I just know that we need to do better. Period.

We need to do better in hiring, training and retaining experienced and qualified management and staff members. Company culture needs to be front and center, and palpable. We need to do a much better job in transferring the knowledge from each generation of workers to the next.

I constantly think of the amazing senior living industry bosses, mentors and colleagues I have had through the years. Where are the mentors in today’s day and age? I know there are not enough of them.

Between my industry work and my academic work, I feel obliged to share anything relevant I have learned in my years in the industry with the next generation of management and staff. All of us in positions of management need to act in a similar manner. Onboarding needs to be taken seriously, and off-boarding needs to be considered just as important, because it provides employees with the opportunity to tell us what we are doing right and what we are not doing right. 

We need to focus on ongoing training, career and professional development, and credentialing, to help staff members further commit to excellence in their roles and their paths for growth and promotion.

But back to my dad. We ended up moving my dad into a fourth community. Although things were not perfect (no place is), the staff did a really good job and were very responsive and attentive to my dad’s needs when issues did arise.

When I was running senior living communities, I always said to new residents and their families: “It is not perfect outside this building, so don’t expect perfection in it. But judge us on how we respond when issues do arise.”

I won’t mention the communities where we had really bad experiences, but I will mention the one where we did have a really good experience. My dad himself even said, “They are doing a pretty darn good job with me,” which was a lot coming from him, since he was not thrilled with the idea of moving into assisted living in the first place.

I want to thank Alta Senior Living and the team at Tequesta Terrace in Tequesta, FL, with particular thanks to Executive Director Christine Cheeseman and Vice President of Operations Sean O’Malley. It is because of their leadership that their staff took great care of, and actually cared for, my dad, respected his needs and delivered on our wishes for him.

We, as an industry, need to make a priority of the transfer of knowledge. My adult caregiver experience with my father reaffirmed the need for the work I am doing at Boston University’s School of Hospitality Administration and our Masters of Management in Hospitality senior living concentration, as well as the work of many other organizations, such as the Vision Centre, the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care, Argentum, the American Seniors Housing Association and a host of other universities involved in educating the next generation of senior living industry management.

The demographics are not taking time off, COVID or no COVID, recession or no recession, staffing crisis or no staffing crisis. If we don’t do better in educating and training the next generation of management and staff, then the positive outcomes we promise our residents have less of a chance of success for those older adults coming in through the front door in the future.

Scott L. Eckstein is the director/adjunct professor of the senior living concentration for the Master of Management in Hospitality degree program at Boston University, managing director of Active Living International and a strategic adviser for CiminoCare.

The opinions expressed in each McKnight’s Senior Living guest column are those of the author and are not necessarily those of McKnight’s Senior Living.

Have a column idea? See our submission guidelines here.

Hebrew SeniorLife taps Steve Landers, MD, MPH, as next president and CEO

Steve Landers MD, MPH, has been appointed as the new president and CEO of Hebrew SeniorLife, a senior living and care provider that is a Harvard Medical School affiliate. He will join Hebrew SeniorLife in July, succeeding Louis J. Woolf, who is retiring after leading the organization for the past 14 years.

Landers comes to Hebrew SeniorLife from the Visiting Nurse Association Health Group, where since 2012 he was president and CEO. He is a practicing physician, certified in family medicine, geriatric medicine and hospice and palliative medicine, and he also holds an appointment as a clinical associate professor of family medicine and community health at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. 

Landers is a graduate of Indiana University at Bloomington, the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He completed a family medicine residency at University Hospitals of Cleveland / CWRU and completed a geriatric medicine fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic.

Gardant names Julie Simpkins and Greg Echols co-presidents

Julie Simpkins and Greg Echols have been named co-presidents of Gardant Management Solutions, the company has announced. The move comes as Rod Burkett transitions from CEO to board chairman, turning over the reins of day-to-day management.

Simpkins has almost 30 years of experience in market rate and affordable senior housing. She has been chief operating officer at Gardant since 2016 and before that was the company’s senior vice president of strategy and business development.

Simpkins was appointed to the National Center for Assisted Living Board of Directors and serves on the finance and policy committee and the NCAL state leader chair. She also serves on the Indiana Center for Assisted Living Advisory Council and its Medicaid waiver sub-committee. She also is on the Indiana Health Care Association / INCAL Board of Directors.

Echols, formerly Gardant’s chief financial officer, brings to his new role more than 30 years of experience in accounting, financial management and real estate development in the senior housing and care sector. He oversees Gardant’s Captive program, an insurance company owned and operated to protect the company and its affiliates from risk and loss.

Integral Senior Living names 2 VPs

Heather Haley has been promoted to vice president of sales and marketing at Integral Senior Living, and Tina Schachter has been promoted to vice president of sales training and executive search.

Haley brings to her new position a decade of experience in healthcare marketing and sales. She now oversees the marketing goals and strategies of communities in Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. Haley started her career by spending five years as the publisher and editor of the Senior Directory East Tennessee.

In her new role, Schachter plays a role in ISL’s continued success at the sales and marketing level, as well as its ability to foster exceptional leadership.

Claiborne names Toni Groselle regional director of sales 

Toni Groselle has been named regional director of sales at Claiborne Senior Living.

Groselle will directly support the community teams in an effort to drive continued growth by ensuring that sales and occupancy goals are met for the communities within Mississippi and Louisiana. 

Groselle brings to the role almost two decades of experience in senior living sales, including 13 years of multi-site regional sales experience. 

Gurwin names John Mastacciuola executive director of Fountaingate Gardens

John Mastacciuola has been named executive director of Fountaingate Gardens, Commack, NY. 

Before joining Fountaingate Gardens, Mastacciuola was regional director of operations at Unidine, part of the Compass Group, where he oversaw dining and hospitality services for Gurwin’s assisted living and independent living communities as well as its nursing and rehabilitation center.

A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, he brings to his new role more than 25 years of experience in the hospitality sector.

Belmont Village names Jorge Noriega executive director of Coral Gables, FL, community

Jorge Noriega has been hired as executive director of Belmont Village Coral Gables, a Belmont Village Senior Living independent living, assisted living and memory care community opening in October in Coral Gables, FL. 

Noriega joined Belmont Village in 2016 and has overseen various initiatives for the development, administrative and investment side of Belmont Village Santa Fe, the company’s first international community, located in Mexico City. In 2020, he was appointed executive director of Belmont Village Santa Fe and later served in an administrative role at Belmont Village La Jolla. 

Noriega earned his undergraduate degree in hospitality administration from Boston University and an MBA from the Ross School of Business.

Kendal at Oberlin promotes Kim Leek to director of nursing

Kim Leek has been promoted to the position of director of nursing for the Stephens Care Center at Kendal at Oberlin, the Kendal Corp. affiliate in Oberlin, OH. The center includes assisted living, memory support, skilled nursing and rehabilitation.

Leek has been a nurse in the aging services field for more than 23 years. and joined Kendal at Oberlin in 2014. She began her career with Kendal as an RN clinical educator.

Leek obtained her master’s degree in nursing in 2019 and earned certification as an infection preventionist in 2020. She served the entire Kendal at Oberlin life plan / continuing care retirement community in this role through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leek was named assistant director of nursing for the Stephens Care Center in 2021. Most recently, she had been serving as interim director of nursing.

Cypress organizations adds 3 physicians

Cypress Cove has welcomed three new physicians to campus to make available in-person care to residents.

Nalinbhai Patel, MD, will provide in-person primary and urgent care to residents and serve as leadership for both Cypress Cove and Cypress at Home, Santokh Walha, MD, will extend in-person primary and urgent care, and Michael Wilkins, DPM, will render podiatry services.

Patel serves as medical director of Cypress at Home and oversees the medical care clinic on the Cypress Cove campus. He also is medical director of Cypress Cove’s assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing. He is a board-certified internal medicine physician with clinical interests in diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and geriatrics. He received his medical degree and completed his residency at Hahnemann University in Philadelphia.

Walha provides in-person patient care on select days and fills in when Patel is away. He received his medical degree at Dayanand Medical College in India and completed his residency in neurology at University of Arkansas. He has experience in skilled nursing, acute care, urgent care and family practice and has been in private practice in Fort Myers, FL, since 1998.

Wilkins sees Cypress Cove residents in the medical care clinic as well as the assisted living and skilled nursing healthcare neighborhoods. He received his podiatric medicine degree from the Barry University School of Podiatric Medicine in Miami Shores, FL, and completed his residency at Westside Regional Medical Center in Plantation, FL.

Bridges by Epoch at Nashua names senior adviser

Colleen Everett has been named senior adviser at Bridges by Epoch at Nashua, a memory care assisted living community in Nashua, NH.

Everett has more than 15 years of senior living experience and has worked with senior living communities across the country. Most recently, she was a regional specialist for a group of communities in Los Angeles. She also previously worked at Epoch Senior Living as senior adviser specialist for Bridges by Epoch’s Pembroke, Hingham and Mashpee locations in Massachusetts.

Everett will be responsible for building relationships with older adults and their families while sharing education, support and resources for the community. She also will oversee connecting with area professionals and local organizations to share the benefits that the Bridges by Epoch at Nashua lifestyle brings.

Everett holds a bachelor’s degree in art history from Sarah Lawrence College and a graduate degree in theology and ministry to the elderly from Andover Newton Theological School. 

Green Street appoints Dan ‘Fig’ Figenshu to CFO

Dan “Fig” Figenshu has been named chief financial officer at commercial real estate intelligence and analytics firm Green Street.

Figenshu formerly was the chief operating officer/chief financial officer at Rocketrip. He also was senior vice president of finance at Mic Network. Earlier in his career, Figenshu held various finance and operational roles at global media companies, including Random House and Simon & Schuster. 

Figenshu received his Bachelor of Science degree in finance from the Wallace E. Carroll School of Management at Boston College.

HJ Sims welcomes Jenny Wade as SVP, investment banking

Jenny Wade has joined privately held investment bank and wealth management firm HJ Sims as senior vice president in the Bloomington, MN, office.

She has more than 21 years of municipal and nonprofit finance experience. Before joining Sims, Wade was a part of the senior living team at Piper Sandler for 16 years, where she focused on the management and execution of financings from engagement to closing for independent living, assisted living and memory care communities, as well as skilled nursing facilities, primarily for nonprofit clients. She also worked for Public Financial Management, a national financial advisory firm to local and state governments.

Wade is active with LeadingAge and the Minnesota Institute of Public Finance, and she serves on the board of directors for Women in Public Finance–Minnesota Chapter and the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management Alumni Board. She also volunteers with Girls on the Run Minnesota, a youth development program for girls in third through eighth grade that teaches life skills through interactive lessons while incorporating running.

Wade earned her MBA, with an emphasis in finance, from the U of M and her bachelor’s degree in business management and French from Luther College in Decorah, IA. She holds Series 7 and Series 50 licenses.

Healthpeak Properties appoints Kathy Sandstrom as board chair

Kathy Sandstrom has been appointed an independent chair of the board of directors of Denver-based  real estate investment trust Healthpeak Properties. 

Sandstrom has more than 20 years of real estate finance and investment experience. She served as senior managing director and global head of Heitman’s public real estate securities business from 2013 to 2018 and was a member of the firm’s Global Management Committee, Board of Managers and the Allocation Committee. Since joining Heitman in 1996, Sandstrom held several senior leadership positions in multiple roles in the institutional real estate investment industry.

She has served on Healthpeak’s board since 2018 and has been vice chair since 2022. She also is a member of the boards of directors of EastGroup Properties and Urban Edge Properties, both New York Stock Exchange-listed REITs.

Vision Centre appoints Nancy Swanger to board of trustees

Nancy Swanger has been appointed to the board of trustees of the Vision Centre, which aims to create 25 university and college programs to prepare future generations of leaders for aging-adult service organizations. From those programs, it also aims to facilitate 1,000 paid internships in the field by 2025.

Swanger is the founding director of the Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living, which is housed in the School of Hospitality Business Management at Washington State University, Pullman, WA, where she also is the associate dean for Inter-College Partnerships in the Carson College of Business. As part of the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing, she was named to the Healthy Ageing 50, one of four from the United States.

Swanger pursued higher education at the University of Idaho, where she received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business education as well as a doctorate in adult education.

The Vision Centre is supported by individual senior living providers as well as the NAB Foundation, the American College of Health Care Administrators, the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living, Argentum, LeadingAge, the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care, the American Seniors Housing Association, and the National Association for Home Care & Hospice.

State of Ohio appoints NAHCA CEO Lori Porter to nursing home task force

National Association of Health Care Assistants CEO and co-founder Lori Porter has been appointed to the newly created Ohio Governor’s Nursing Home Quality and Accountability Task Force. She will work with other experts in aging, long-term care and other disciplines toward a goal of making excellence the expectation for all of Ohio’s nursing homes.

Porter, a 2023 inductee into the McKnight’s Women of Distinction Hall of Honor, brings more than 40 years of experience to her new role. She previously was a certified nursing assistant for seven years and a nursing home administrator for seven. She has served as NAHCA CEO since 1995.

Send your personnel news to Lois Bowers at lois.bowers@mcknights.com. High-quality color headshots are welcome but not required.

The center is “grateful for Kendal’s commitment to our mission and goals as we move forward with our future strategies,” Vision Centre CEO Doug Olson said. “Sponsorships and support from outstanding organizations like Kendal are what drives this effort forward.”

As McKnight’s Senior Living previously reported, the Vision Centre provides a bridge between universities and providers to help find ways to interest students in working in senior living and other areas of long-term care. Its goal is to create 25 robust higher education programs to prepare future generations of leaders, and the center also aims to facilitate 1,000 paid internships from those programs by 2025. 

Kendal’s financial commitment will help the relatively new 501(c )(3) nonprofit organization meet that goal. The organizational joins a host of other supporters, including the American College of Health Care Administrators, the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living, the American Seniors Housing Association, Argentum, LeadingAge, the NAB Foundation, the National Association for Home Care & Hospice and the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care.

“The Vision Centre’s dedication to creating valuable conversations and advancement will directly support organizations like Kendal,” Kendal Chief Strategy Officer Steve Bailey said. “I am confident the Vision Centre will produce top-of-the-line university partnerships that will transform the future of the senior living field. Together, we have the ability to inspire the next generation of senior living.”

Part of addressing senior living’s perennial challenge, recruiting and retaining employees, is planning for the next generation of leaders. Douglas Olson, PhD, MBA, the new president and CEO of the Vision Centre and former director of the Center for Health Administration and Aging Services Excellence at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, recently spoke with McKnight’s Senior Living about how the new center will try to tackle that issue.

Q: The Vision Centre is a relatively new 501(c )(3) nonprofit organization. For those who may not be familiar with it, can you talk about the organization and what it plans to do?

A: The seniors of this country deserve the very best care and services possible, and one of the ways to help ensure that is to make sure that we have the very best leaders guiding the organizations. The supply of leaders in the fi eld today is a challenge for providers across the country, and we also know that the landscape of universities that provide training for senior living leadership is not what we would hope it could be.

The Vision Centre, at its core, is all about finding a way to get new students and mid-career students interested in this field and having the availability of training programs at universities and other creative ways to make sure that they can get into the field and provide the leadership, depth and talent that we need to help organizations. The Vision Centre provides a bridge between universities and providers to make sure that they’re working well together, because we believe that’s one of the “secret sauces” of providing an exceptional experience.

I feel privileged to be appointed as the CEO and president, but I also would be remiss if I didn’t share the fact that there has been a whole bunch of really talented, smart people interested in what we’re doing. We have a great group of volunteer leaders who started with this movement a number of years ago, and we’ve had a number of those volunteers step forward to serve as trustees guiding our efforts.

Q: What other organizations in the industry are involved with this effort?

A: We have eight endorsing organizations. We knew at the very beginning that this problem was not going to be solved by universities alone, providers alone or associations alone.

And so we are blessed that the NAB Foundation, the American College of Health Care Administrators, the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living, Argentum, LeadingAge, the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care, the American Seniors Housing Association, and now also the National Association for Home Care & Hospice, all are stepping forward because they see the value of coming together to solve a problem that really is everybody’s problem.

Having an effort like the Vision Centre focused on this issue helps them support their members and their associations’ interests in a concerted way. All of the associations do some really great things around this topic. With the guidance of our trustees and advisory council, we’ll shine a light on some of those important efforts.

Q: The Vision Centre aims to create 25 university and college programs to prepare future generations of leaders for aging adult service organizations, and from those programs, it also aims to facilitate 1,000 paid internships in the field by 2025. Can you describe how the center plans to accomplish those goals?

A: We want to be able to provide the resources and support for universities and providers who want to advance their efforts. Some of the things that are front and center for us that we’re going to move forward with are an advisory council, a strategic plan and a directory that will include about 60 universities. The directory will share information about each university’s student base, field experiences, curriculum and programs, and engagement with the field.

We also have a website, visioncentre.org, which we will start to populate with other resources and tools that people can use.

Q: Are there any other points you’d like to share?

A: I and many other people who are involved believe that this effort will help the entire public image of our field in general.

The connections and partnerships with universities and providers across the country will lift up the entire spectrum of senior living and the importance of it to our country.

This is an abridged and edited version of a conversation recorded for a McKnight’s Senior Living Newsmakers podcast.