George Chapman, Marilynn Duker and Bob Kramer headshots
The late George Chapman, left, along with Marilynn Duker and Robert G. Kramer, are being inducted into the Senior Living Hall of Fame.

The late George Chapman, along with Marilynn Duker and Robert G. Kramer, are the 2024 inductees into the Senior Living Hall of Fame, the American Seniors Housing Association announced Thursday.

ASHA awards the annual honor to recognize “visionaries who have distinguished themselves through uncommon foresight and ground-breaking innovation.” Inductees, the association said, “are industry leaders with an unwavering commitment to community lifestyles that enhance choice, independence, dignity and personalized service.”

ASHA President and CEO David Schless said: “We are very grateful to them and their commitment to senior living.” 

The honorees will be inducted in January at ASHA’s annual meeting in Aventura, FL. They will join 24 others previously inducted in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.

George Chapman

George Chapman headshot
George Chapman

Chapman spent 31 years investing and running companies in the senior living space, during which time, according to ASHA, “one constant, core principle” was “developing longstanding, mutually rewarding relationships built on loyalty, trust and spirited friendship.”

Chapman joined Toledo, OH-based Health Care REIT (now known as Welltower) in 1992 as executive vice president and general counsel, then became chairman and CEO in 1996 and added the title of president in 2009.

After Congress passed the RIDEA Act in 2007, which gave REITs the ability to share in the net operating income generated by their assets, Chapman quickly recognized how this would better align the interests of owners and operators, ASHA said, adding that Health Care REIT was the first to close a RIDEA transaction. 

Chapman retired from Health Care REIT in 2014 after having assembled a portfolio of senior living, skilled nursing and medical office properties with an enterprise value of more than $25 billion in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. After Welltower, Chapman founded ReNew REIT in 2018.

Chapman, who passed away in 2023, was a longtime board member of ASHA and a Chairman’s Circle supporter of the Seniors Housing PAC. Over the course of his career, he also served on the boards of Benchmark Senior Living, Sunrise Senior Living, OnShift, National Storage Affiliates and the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, among other organizations.

He “had a profound impact on the senior living industry both as a pioneering investor and as a mentor to hundreds of next-generation leaders,” Schless said.

Marilynn Duker

Marilynn Duker

Duker, Schless said, “helped create one of the industry’s finest organizations with a culture and a commitment to caring that has been recognized for excellence by consumers, team members, and investors alike.”

Duker joined Brightview Senior Living’s predecessor, The Shelter Group, a privately held real estate development and property management firm, in 1982. She was The Shelter Group’s second employee and has been involved in every phase of the company’s operations and growth.

By 1996, she and her business partner, Arnie Richman, were ready to capitalize on a new opportunity by branching out into senior living. Richman led the creation of Brightview, while Duker continued to lead the multifamily side of the business until becoming president of Brightview in 2007. She subsequently became CEO.

Brightview opened its first senior living community in 1999 and over the years has grown to 47 independent living, assisted living and memory care communities in eight states along the East Coast. She has been responsible for directing strategy, operations and long-term growth of the business. In 2022, she began transitioning to the role of co-chair.

Under Duker’s leadership, Brightview has been rewarded for impressive accomplishments. Recently, for instance:

  • The company was the only senior living operator listed among employers on the Best Workplaces for Women lists in 2019 and 2022.
  • Brightview topped the Best Workplaces in Aging Services list for large-sized companies in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
  • 2022 was the company’s second consecutive year earning a spot on People’s Companies that Care list, and it was the only senior living company to make the list, as it had been in 2021.
  • Brightview also was the only senior living company to land a spot on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list, in both 2021 and 2023.

Duker serves on the Mercy Health Systems Board of Trustees and until October 2022 also served on the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care’s Operator Advisory Board. She was recognized as the Loyola University of Maryland Sellinger School of Business Leader of the Year in 2019 and received the McKnight’s Women of Distinction Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.

Before joining The Shelter Group/Brightview, she was a Presidential Intern at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

She is a graduate of The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH, and holds a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

Bob Kramer

Robert Kramer headshot
Robert G. Kramer

Kramer, Schless said, “played an instrumental role in the creation of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care and their efforts to educate potential lenders and investors about the senior care continuum.”

His “commitment to advancing innovation for older adults in housing, community and healthcare,” ASHA said, can be traced to 1991, when he co-founded the organization, where he was president and CEO through 2017. Today, he continues to serve NIC as board member and strategic adviser. 

Under Kramer’s leadership, ASHA noted, NIC pioneered the development of data and analytics that the capital markets relied on as they turned their attention to the emerging senior living industry and powered its subsequent growth. 

Kramer also was instrumental in compiling and naming “The Forgotten Middle,” a landmark study funded by NIC and published by the journal Health Affairs in 2019. It examined the health and socioeconomic status of middle-income adults who will be 75 years old or older in 2029, their ability to afford private-pay senior housing, and potential solutions to meeting their needs.

According to ASHA, the mission of one of Kramer’s most recent endeavors, the Nexus Insights think tank, “neatly sums up his prolific, multi-faceted and highly influential role in senior living: Rethink aging from every angle.” He founded Nexus Insights in 2020, where he works with a network of senior living leaders to identify and track trends in aging as well as promote innovative models for services, housing and care for older adults. It is merging with the new Aging Innovation Collaborative of the Milken Institute’s Center for the Future of Aging thanks to $3 million in funding from NIC.

Kramer also received the inaugural McKnight’s Pinnacle Awards Career Achievement Award in 2023.

He also is a former county government official and Maryland state legislator. After graduating from Harvard University, he went on to Oxford University and earned a Master of Divinity degree from Westminster Theological Seminary.

This year’s inductees were chosen by the Senior Living Hall of Fame Selection Committee, which is led by former ASHA Chair Larry Cohen, CEO of Trustwell Living. Committee members include Lois Bowers, editor of McKnight’s Senior Living, and Steve Monroe, Tim Mullaney and Matt Valley.