The LCS Foundation has announced a partnership with the Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living to provide an annual scholarship to add more professionals to the senior living industry.

The institute was announced for Washington State University in 2017 and dedicated in 2019 to focus on building the future senior living workforce through academic programs, industry partnerships and research. It is named for the senior living industry executive who helped build the Washington State University senior living curriculum and taught a course in senior housing administration before he died in 2015. The senior living management program, launched in 2020, offers industry-driven courses, immersive learning, community operations expertise and industry-expert connections before graduation. 

In December, the program celebrated its first graduate, who earned the degree through the institute’s global campus. Six students have completed the senior living minor, which began in fall 2021, and 25 students are in the pipeline working on a senior living major or minor, according to GCISL founding director Nancy Swanger, PhD. Since offering an elective class in senior living management in 2010, almost 800 students have taken the course, with many now working in the industry. 

“Our program is quite unique in that it is housed in a hospitality school within an accredited college of business. The industry loves the business acumen and relationship-building foci in our curriculum,” Swanger told McKnight’s Senior Living. “The program at Washington State University is relatively new, and having such generous support for our students from LCS lends tremendous validity and credibility to what we are trying to build.”

Swanger added that many industry providers have given their “time, talent and treasure to help the program grow,” and that the LCS scholarship is one of three specifically for students studying senior living.

Swanger is on the board of trustees of the Vision Centre, which is supported by several industry associations — including the American Health Care Association / National Center for Assisted Living, the American Seniors Housing Association, Argentum, LeadingAge and the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care — and working to create university and college programs and facilitate internships to prepare future generations of aging services leaders.

Since 2017, the LCS Foundation has awarded more than $450,000 in scholarships and professional development programs. The foundation also has collegiate partnerships with the University of Northern Iowa, Northwood University and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Those partnerships have placed senior living experts on advisory boards, developed curricula and helped provide students with interactions to advance their learning.

Other senior living-focused academic programs include an assisted living/senior housing administration concentration at George Mason University, a Master of Arts degree in senior living hospitality at the University of Southern California Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, an undergraduate degree in senior living management in University of Central Florida’s Rose College of Hospitality Management, and Boston University’s concentration in senior living in the Masters of Management in Hospitality degree program.

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.

The School of Hospitality Administration is actively recruiting students for a new concentration in senior living in the Master of Management in Hospitality degree program. The concentration will extend the school’s reach into areas needing these skill sets, administrators said.

“The MMH concentration in senior living provides students the opportunity to bring the hospitality experience to the rapidly growing senior living and long-term care industries. This concentration is offered for job opportunities and to enable students who wish to pursue a field that is altruistic and socially responsible,” Dean Arun Upneja, Ph.D., said in a statement. “This is a field that cares for seniors today and tomorrow. Pursuing a career in senior living means doing well by doing good.”

MMH Chair Leora Halpern Lanz told McKnight’s Senior Living that the pandemic “catapulted” the need for the program.

“Several of our students in the past have moved into the field and eagerly and enthusiastically shared the parallels. I thought this was a no-brainer,” Lanz said. “Much research went into the coursework development and integration with other courses within the bigger Boston University to show the expansion of disciplines within senior living.”

Lanz said the program was crafted with the help of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care. NIC Chief Economist Beth Burnham Mace educated program administrators on the industry and suggested helpful coursework. Mace also introduced Boston University to senior living industry executives and “those passionate about the business.”

“Her support and assistance, altruistically and genuinely, contributed greatly,” Lanz said. “We connected with so many new relationships who are as supportive and helpful.”

NIC also will serve as a resource for internships and scholarships for students.

The Boston University program joins others that have launched in recent years, including an assisted living / senior housing administration concentration at George Mason University, a Master of Arts degree in Senior Living Hospitality at the University of Southern California Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, an undergraduate senior living management major at Washington State University’s School of Hospitality Business Management under the Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living, and an undergraduate degree in senior living management in University of Central Florida’s Rose College of Hospitality Management.

The Boston University senior living program will complement MMH’s existing concentrations in revenue management and analytics, real estate and finance, digital marketing, and innovation and entrepreneurship.

Required course in senior living operations, monitoring the resident journey experience, and the business of senior care will be in addition to hospitality administration requirements in leadership, financing, and branding and marketing. Optional electives also will be available in hospitality real estate financing and feasibility, and through the Schools of Social Work and Public Health.

“This concentration focuses on the core requirements for hospitality executives to understand how skills can be transferred from traditional hospitality operations to those in senior living communities,” Lanz said.

A new senior living management major at Washington State University is designed to prepare business students for managerial positions in the senior living industry, with a focus on hospitality operations.

The undergraduate major will be offered on the Pullman, WA, campus of WSU’s School of Hospitality Business Management under the Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living. The institute, dedicated in 2017, is named for the late industry veteran who founded assisted living company Cobbco; served as president, CEO and director of Summerville Senior Living; was president and CEO of Emeritus Senior Living; and became a board member of Brookdale Senior living when it merged with Emeritus.

“The goal is to be the program of choice for students and industry seeking an operationally focused senior living management program, supported by a solid business foundation, for education, training, employment and support,” said Nancy Swanger, founding director of the WSU Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living. “Graduates will be poised to become the next generation of senior living leaders to improve best practices, technology and residents’ quality of life.”

Plans for a WSU senior living management program began several years ago in conversations with some of the nation’s top senior living providers, including Aegis Living, Leisure Care, Emeritus (now Brookdale) and Merrill Gardens. The school’s first senior living offering was an elective course launched in 2011. The school added an online senior living certificate that is being revised to meet the needs of the industry. 

“Senior living companies came to us because they wanted people with a hospitality mindset who can enhance a service model, versus a skilled nursing or a medical model,” Swanger said. “They loved the fact that we are a hospitality school in an accredited college of business.

“Our students graduate with very solid business fundamentals. Senior living companies are still businesses, and people have to understand ‘no margin, no mission.’ ”

Swanger told McKnight’s Senior Living that 29 students interested in senior living management have been admitted to the university, and 10 of those confirmed their admission and will be enrolling for fall classes.

“We are actually quite encouraged by these numbers, as we were not allowed to market the major in any fashion until it was approved by the Faculty Senate and the Board of Regents. Those approvals came in late May,” Swanger said. 

There are only a handful of four-year degree programs in hospitality housed in accredited colleges of business. SHBM is among the first to offer a senior living major in an accredited college of business.

As 75 million baby boomers reach retirement age in the next eight to 10 years, the demand for senior living professionals will skyrocket, according to projections from Argentum. Swanger said there aren’t enough quality managers to meet the growing demand of the business.

“The technology and lifestyle of senior living will present some of the most entrepreneurial career spaces in the future,” she said. 

Students in the program receive immersive learning opportunities at senior living communities each semester and are required to earn 1,000 hours of paid industry experience to graduate. 

Swanger said SHBM continues to work with multiple industry and vendor partners, along with several individuals, through the institute to keep its curriculum relevant and increase the number of professionals and students studying senior living management. Their support includes a range of involvement, including financial, steering committee membership, guest lecturers, course instructors, curriculum development, collaborative research projects, student internships / work experience, scholarships and field trips.

In the senior living business world, there arguably has been no executive more beloved than Granger Cobb. 

That’s how he was described and remembered by colleagues after his death from cancer in 2015 at age 55 . During his time here, Cobb served as a true pioneer and leader for the senior living industry. 

After graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles, in the early 1980s, Cobb began in the industry as an executive director for a senior living community. In the late 1980s, he and his wife, Tina, founded Cobbco Inc., a California-based assisted living company. 

The firm was later acquired by Summerville Senior Living in 1998, and from 2000 to 2007, Cobb became the parent company’s president and CEO. 

His most notable work may have come after Summerville merged with Emeritus Senior Living in 2007, where he was named president and co-CEO. Under his leadership, the company reached more than 31,000 employees, serving nearly 54,000 residents in more than 500 communities in 45 states. 

Cobb also was a key player in the merger between Emeritus and Brookdale Senior Living, an eye-popping $2.8 billion deal that created the largest senior living company in the United States. He served as a member of Brookdale’s board of directors after the deal closed.

In addition to his work as a company executive, Cobb also served several industry organizations, including the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care, the American Seniors Housing Association, Argentum (then called the Assisted Living Federation of America) and the California Assisted Living Association. 

Most recently, his work was honored by Washington State University’s School of Hospitality Business Management in September 2019, when it formally dedicated the Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living. 

Cobb, along with four other senior living executives, helped build the university’s senior living curriculum and taught a senior housing administration course there for students. It is through these and other efforts that his active legacy lives on.

They join a total of nine others inducted in 2018 and 2019.

“The Senior Living Hall of Fame recognizes the visionaries who have distinguished themselves through uncommon foresight and ground-breaking innovation,” according to ASHA. “These are industry leaders with an unwavering commitment to community lifestyles that enhance choice, independence, dignity and personalized service.”

Lynne Katzmann, Ph.D.

Katzmann founded Bloomfield, NJ-based Juniper 31 years ago and continues to actively lead the company, which now has 22 properties in three states.

Among its innovative programs, Juniper has addressed the changing nature of assisted living and rising acuity levels by implementing its Connect4Life model, which integrates onsite primary care, pharmacy and lab services with social supports and residential care. In research, the model showed a potential cost savings in hospital inpatient spending of up to $4,500 per Medicare beneficiary.

The Connect4Life care coordination model soon may be finding its way into senior living communities across the country under the terms of a five-year licensing agreement between Juniper and Richmond, VA-based Medicare Advantage plan developer and administrator AllyAlign Health.

Juniper also is leading the formation of a Medicare Advantage institutional special needs plan, or I-SNP, in collaboration with Engelwood, CO-based Christian Living Communities, Columbus, OH-based Ohio Living and AllyAlign Health. Under the Perennial Consortium banner, the group plans to go live with the network in 2021 and to expand via partnerships with additional operator stakeholders.

In 2019, Katzmann was the recipient of the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award that was bestowed as part of the McKnight’s Women of Distinction awards by McKnight’s Senior Living and McKnight’s Long-Term Care News.

Emmett and Alice Koelsch

After 21 years at Reynolds Metals, Emmett Koelsch left the company to pursue a new business: seniors housing and care. The Koelsches started their family business in 1958 when they acquired a nursing home in Kelso, WA, that had 52 beds, all of them empty. They moved themselves and their five children into the basement and got to work, buying or building every nursing home in Cowlitz County over the next 10 years.

In 1971, the couple had an idea: Provide services for those who no longer could live alone but did not require skilled nursing care. They built the Delaware Plaza in Longview, WA, providing meals, housekeeping and medication management for their residents, 10 years before the term assisted living was coined.

The Koelsches built their senior living business over the next 25 years. When they retired, all five of their children followed in their footsteps, starting their own senior housing businesses. These businesses — Olympia, WA-based Koelsch Communities, Vancouver, WA-based Jerry Erwin Associates (JEA Senior Living) and Washington state-based Weatherly Inn — now operate more than 100 communities across 21 states.

Emmett Koelsch passed away in 2012. Alice Koelsch Schultz passed away in 2014.

Margaret Wylde, Ph.D.

Margaret Wylde, Ph.D., founded Oxford, MS-based ProMatura Group, which specializes in 55+ age-qualified research, planning and programming, in 1984. Since that time, she has conducted an extensive body of research aimed at improving the collective understanding of the 55+ market, including studies for ASHA.

Among the numerous studies she has led are “Prospective Independent Living Customers: Key Findings from a Study of Prospects and Hold Outs,” 2013; “Unlocking the Mystery Behind Very Satisfied Customers: Make Them Feel at Home,” 2014; “ICAA/ProMatura Wellness Benchmarks National Report,” 2015; “California’s Assisted Living Communities Provide Quality of Life to Residents and Family Members,” 2016; “Senior Living Technology Report,” 2017; and “People, Place, Programming: Quality of Life in Assisted Living,” 2019.

ASHA also cited Wylde’s “significant” effect on community planning research that defines lifestyles, residences, amenities, services, payment plans and pricing across North America, Europe and Australia.

ProMatura has collected data since 2003 for use by investors and developers of age-qualified, service-enriched housing and has provided these data to the National Investment Center for the Seniors Housing & Care Industry, which uses them to track key market trends quarterly.

Selection Committee and previous inductees

The Senior Living Hall of Fame Selection Committee for the 2019 and 2020 inductees was chaired by Larry Cohen, long-time industry executive and former ASHA chairman. Committee members were Lois Bowers, editor of McKnight’s Senior Living, and additional business media professionals covering the industry, Steve Monroe, Matt Valley and John Yedinak.

2019 inductees into the Senior Living Hall of Fame included real estate investment trust Ventas CEO Debra A. Cafaro, Sunrise Senior Living founder Paul Klaassen and National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care co-founder Tony Mullen (deceased).

Inductees in the hall’s inaugural year, 2018, included the late Granger Cobb, CEO of Emeritus, which was acquired by Brookdale Senior Living in 2014, the late Bill Colson, who in 1971 with his father founded what became Holiday Retirement; Bill Kaplan, who founded Senior Lifestyle in 1985; McKnight’s Senior Living columnist Jim Moore, president of consulting firm Moore Diversified Services; Bill Sheriff, former Brookdale CEO; and Stan Thurston, former president and CEO of Life Care Services.

Education programs at the Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living at Washington State University will benefit from a $100,000 donation that Bend, OR-based real estate marketing optimization company G5 has pledged.

The company announced the planned contribution, which will be distributed over five years, on Wednesday.

The institute, first publicly announced in 2017, was dedicated in October at the completion of a $2.5 million fundraising campaign. The name honors the late industry veteran, who founded assisted living company Cobbco; served as president, CEO and director of Summerville Senior Living; was president and CEO of Emeritus Senior Living; and then became a board member of Brookdale Senior Living when Emeritus and Brookdale merged.

“The current talent pool for senior living is limited. According to 2016 projections from Argentum, the industry must attract more than 1.2 million additional employees by 2025 to fill talent gaps,” Nancy Swanger, associate dean, Carson College of Business and founding director of the institute, said in a statement. “Helping to fund necessary research and development initiatives for the incoming workforce is a stepping stone for the greater good of the industry, and we’re proud to be part of that with the help of G5.”

Cobb, a former chairman of Argentum’s board (when the organization was known as the Assisted Living Federation of America), died in September 2015 after an intermittent battle with cancer over several years. He was one of the senior living leaders who had helped build the senior living curriculum at Washington State, and he taught a semester-long course in senior housing administration for juniors and seniors, according to R.D. Merrill Co. President Bill Pettit.

The institute’s new curriculum, once consisting of one elective course, now includes an online certificate program. Plans for an undergraduate major through the institute are underway, to prepare students for careers in senior living through courses and industry partnerships.

“We believe our contribution to the Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living will help advance the senior living industry and develop new passions and future careers,” G5 CEO Dan Hobin said.

Washington State University’s School of Hospitality Business Management will celebrate the formal naming of the Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living, first publicly announced in 2017, on Oct. 30.

A dedication ceremony and reception will recognize the completion of a $2.5 million fundraising campaign.

The institute name honors the late industry veteran, who founded assisted living company Cobbco; served as president, CEO and director of Summerville Senior Living; was president and CEO of Emeritus Senior Living; and then became a board member of Brookdale Senior Living when Emeritus and Brookdale merged. Cobb, a former chairman of Argentum’s board (when the organization was known as the Assisted Living Federation of America), died in September 2015 after an intermittent battle with cancer over several years.

Not quite a decade ago, executives from four senior living companies, including Cobb, helped build the WSU senior living curriculum and taught a semester-long course in senior housing administration for juniors and seniors, according to R.D. Merrill Co. President Bill Pettit.

“Sadly, we lost Granger in 2015, but his passion lives on through the WSU Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living,” said Nancy Swanger, director of the School of Hospitality Business Management, of which the institute is a part. “He touched countless lives, and I am so proud that WSU is carrying out his professional legacy and passion for creating the future senior living industry workforce.”

The hospitality school is expanding its senior living management program to equip students with real-world operations knowledge and industry-expert connections in senior living before they graduate. Students must complete a 1,000-hour industry internship before graduating. The institute also offers a certificate program.

See the institute’s steering committee members here.

“The Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living will be a pioneer in integrating teaching and research for a rapidly growing industry,” said Chip Hunter, dean of the Carson College of Business, of which the School of Hospitality Business Management is a part. “In addition to industry partners, our efforts reach across campus with touch points in nursing, electrical engineering, human development, psychology and construction management. Our collective momentum will redefine the perception of senior living and prepare the next generation of leaders in this space.”

Those interested in attending the dedication reception must register online by Oct. 5.

They will be honored Jan. 31 during the association’s 2019 annual meeting in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA.

“The Senior Living Hall of Fame recognizes the visionaries who have distinguished themselves through uncommon foresight and groundbreaking innovation,” according to ASHA. “These are industry leaders with an unwavering commitment to community lifestyles that enhance choice, independence, dignity and personalized service.”

Cafaro is CEO and chairman of Ventas, an S&P 500 real estate investment trust  that owns approximately 1,200 seniors housing, healthcare and university-based research properties spanning North America and the United Kingdom. She has served in the role for 19 years.

Ventas had a market capitalization reaching $26 billion at its peak, but when Cafaro joined the REIT in 1999 after graduating with honors from Notre Dame, receiving her law degree cum laude from the University of Chicago and practicing real estate, finance and corporate law, it had a market capitalization of $200 million. Its principal tenant was Vencor, which primarily operated skilled nursing homes and long-term acute care hospitals.

Vencor eventually declared bankruptcy and reorganized later as Kindred Healthcare. Cafaro diversified the REIT’s holdings.

Ventas has made more than $30 billion in strategic investments since 2004. Today, more than half of its portfolio’s net operating income comes from seniors housing.

Among Cafaro’s many other honors, she twice was named one of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes Magazine and has been named a Top 50 Best-Performing CEOs in the World by Harvard Business Review every year since 2014. Among her many other roles, last year, she was named chair of The Real Estate Roundtable, a public policy organization that brings together leaders of the real estate ownership, development, lending and management firms to address key national policy issues relating to real estate.

In 2016, Cafaro became an owner and member of the management committee of the NHL Pittsburgh Penguins of the city where she grew up.

Paul and Terri Klaassen’s vision for what would become known as assisted living got its start in 1981 in an abandoned former nursing home, ASHA noted.

“Their foresight and incomparable innovation triggered a national movement,” according to the organization.

Klaassen was inspired largely from his childhood experiences in the Netherlands, ASHA noted. There, his grandparents, who lived in an elder care community, enjoyed the independence of shopping, cooking and personal hobbies but had access to assistance when they needed it.

Klaassen started Sunrise Senior Living in suburban Virginia and opened three communities in three years. Under his leadership, the company grew to more than 450 communities in four countries, with approximately 50,000 residents and 43,000 employees.

Additional funding for expansion came after private equity in the early 1990s secured a 25% interest in Sunrise. Development went from two properties a year to 10 annually.

Sunrise went public in 1996, and the development pace accelerated to 20 communities a year. When Klaassen stepped down as CEO in 2008, 30 properties were under construction.

Mullen, who died in 2018, co-founded NIC in 1991 and served as the organization’s first research director before chairing NIC’s research committee and then becoming a senior fellow. He was instrumental in creating the NIC MAP Data Service, which tracks senior living metrics in the largest metropolitan areas across the country.

He also played a pivotal role in drilling deeper into communities’ data for “The State of Seniors Housing,” the ASHA-founded annual compendium that tracks the industry’s financial and operating performance.

In 1996, Mullen founded the annual Advanced Sales and Marketing Summit. For 21 years, he assembled experts in senior living who shared best practices in sales conversions.

He leaves a heritage that will be passed down to the future generations of senior living management, thanks to his role in co-founding graduate-level seniors housing and care programs at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, ASHA noted.

The Senior Living Hall of Fame Selection Committee for the 2019 class was led by Larry Cohen, the recently retired CEO of Capital Senior Living and former ASHA chairman. Committee members included Lois Bowers of McKnight’s Senior Living and additional business journalists covering the industry.

Six people were inducted into the Senior Living Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 2018: Granger Cobb, Bill Colson, Bill Kaplan, Jim Moore, Bill Sheriff and Stan Thurston. Read more about them here.