Newly released research forecasts another coming demographic trend that operators will want to get ready for: The number of centenarians is expected to more than quadruple by 2054, according to data from the US Census Bureau analyzed by the Pew Research Center.

“Centenarians currently make up just 0.03% of the overall US population, and they are expected to reach 0.1% in 2054,” according to Pew. That percentage may not sound like much (and some of the proportion change is partially due to an expected lower birth rate), but looked at another way, the population of those aged 100 or more will grow from 101,000 this year to approximately 422,000 over the next three decades.

By comparison, look back to 1950 and only 2,300 Americans were centenarians, Pew pointed out, citing Census data. What a difference!

Exactly what can senior living expect? It’s difficult to say for sure. Other changes involving older adult health, medical advances and related issues may be in store as well.

But it’s easy to imagine an increased length of stay for the types of individuals who typically are moving into senior living communities now. Or, the average move-in age range may be pushed higher — some older adults currently are able to stay in their homes until they pass away, but as life spans increase, they may age to a point at which they need the services and care found at a senior living community.

Prepared operators should have new opportunities.

It’s worth noting that many baby boomers will be part of this demographic trend, too — they will be aged 90 to 108 in 2054. So maybe this trend simply will represent a progression of the wave, at least at first.

One thing is certain: While preparing to meet the needs and wants of baby boomers today, operators will need to start thinking about how to evolve to serve those boomers, and the generations that come after them, as more of them live more than 10 decades.

Lois A. Bowers is the editor of McKnight’s Senior Living. Read her other columns here. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at Lois_Bowers.

The effort queried 2,000 US adults in October. That the survey was sponsored by The Vitamin Shoppe and dietary supplement brand Ancient Nutrition probably doesn’t surprise you, given that so many of our annual promises to ourselves revolve around health and wellness.

In fact, the top categories for goals, according to a Talker report on the survey, include relationships and friendships (51%), physical health (49%), socializing (44%) and mental health (39%).

Making resolutions is popular, survey results show. Three-fourths (75%) of respondents said they set at least one resolution each new year, and another 12% said they set resolutions, but not necessarily every year.

“The New Year can be an ideal time to set resolutions and goals, because it’s a chance for a fresh start and a clean slate,” said Josh Axe, DNM, DC, CNS, co-founder of Ancient Nutrition and a member of The Vitamin Shoppe’s Wellness Council. “Lots of people are setting goals at this time, so you can feel supported and part of something bigger than just yourself.”

Forty percent of poll-takers said that the way to keep a resolution is to “start small,” even though 42% of respondents said they preferred to make long-term goals; 27% said they preferred to make short-term goals.

Respondents said that goals, on average, should be attained within five months, but if not successful, 54% of respondents said they would just start over. Most of the adults taking the survey said they viewed resolutions as a motivator (63%), a tradition (50%) or a way to improve their health (44%).

Axe said that it’s important for people to tailor their resolutions to their own health and lifestyle, because everyone is different.

“Resolutions and goals, whether long-term or short-term, can be powerful motivators for each of us to work towards improving our health and sense of well-being,” Axe said. He recommended that resolutions be specific, measurable and achievable. “Wellness is a lifelong journey, and resolutions and goals can be helpful reminders and incentives along the way,” he added.

Wishing you much happiness and success on your journey.

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

Oh, and also yourself.

Care — whether that’s giving or receiving — bookends all our lives. Yet for some reason, the bulk of the focus is either squarely on the front end of that journey, when children enter the picture, or the back end, when parents and other relatives begin to age.

But what about the middle and the transition from one phase to another? For us to thrive as a society, I believe we need to start thinking about care, not as something that happens at the start or end of life, but something that is continuous — something that enhances life and doesn’t diminish it.

Currently, we’re not set up for this reality. But by radically rethinking the care economy, we can be. To flip the script and reframe how we offer care in this country, there are three conversations we need to have. Let’s take a look at each.

1. What does care look like at every stage in my live and my loved ones’ lives?

It doesn’t matter what season of life a person is in, we can all benefit from having a safety net of care. That peace of mind that comes from knowing measures are in place to protect you. But safety nets require preparation, and herein lies the rub.

By default, babies come with time built in to anticipate and plan their caretaking, usually with the help of others, whether that includes a partner, coworkers, friends or family. For the other side of life’s bell curve, it’s a bit more challenging. One minute your parents are spry, hiking Machu Picchu, and the next, they’ve fallen and broken a hip. Things can change at any moment. And they do — without nine months of preparation to “senior proof” your loved one’s home so they can continue to live independently.

How do we prepare for those unexpected situations? Communication. Instead of waiting for a parent to become vulnerable, we can talk with one another about caretaking for all the stages that comprise our lives. Perhaps it’s when they have their first grandchild. Do they want to live closer? With consistent planning and regular check-ins about what lies ahead (both the potential and inevitable), we replace fear with transparency. And in doing so, we can prepare for these events and provide our loved ones with a safety net instead of a rude awakening.

2. How does care help me live my best life?

Not to answer a question with a question, but what if, instead of viewing care through a lens of crisis and catastrophe, we viewed it as self-care? To some, this may seem like a stretch beyond radical, but hear me out.

When we shift our viewpoint of caring for others and receiving care as an opportunity for independence and freedom, the act becomes empowering, enriching, and a sign of agency, confidence and strength.

The process starts by completing three relatively straightforward steps:

• Acknowledge you need help.

• Ask for help.

• Accept the help.

Although simple, executing on those three steps can be difficult. They each require some degree of vulnerability. And who likes that feeling? This is especially true of the caregivers who belong to the sandwich generation, those people (primarily women) in their 40s and 50s situated between the young and old and responsible for caretaking both.

For women, it’s easy to assume the role of caregiver — for everyone. At peril to ourselves, we fall into the stereotype of feeling like we have to be invulnerable and completely self-reliant. When you consider that mothers in the sandwich generation feel more stress than any other age group, it becomes clear that functioning as a village unto ourselves is unsustainable.

It’s only when we become able to model for others that it’s OK to ask for and receive assistance that we can get off the island of one and instead provide safety and assistance to one another.

3. Who is in my care village, and how do we lean on each other?

Growing up, my care village consisted of three generations, with no fewer than seven kids running amok at any time. If my parents were working, then there always was an aunt, uncle or grandparent to help — and there was no shame in asking. If one person needed a break, someone else stepped in — caregiving was a shared responsibility, and the idea of a care village embodies the principle that everyone, regardless of age, deserves a supportive community around them. That’s not a common model anymore, especially in a Western culture dominated by the nuclear family. And although everyone’s care village is different, it doesn’t mean we all still don’t need one.

When you consider the concept of a village, it’s important to think beyond only family. Not everyone has family in the traditional sense and oftentimes, they can be fraught. A village, on the other hand, is accessible and available to all — it just may be your next-door neighbor, your former spouse, or the people you play cards with each month.

With a village, it doesn’t matter who “resides” there; the important thing is to have that connectedness of care. And just as its members don’t have to live under one roof or even next door, a village also might not even be a person, it also could be technology.

With advancements in AI and machine learning, technology that can connect caretakers to people both on and offline, and a proactive internet of things that allows caregivers and care receivers to get ahead of a future incident, our villages become exponentially vast.

This affords peace of mind. Because I worry — and not just about the older members of my family. I think of my daughter at college and her personal safety and security, my friend out on a Tinder date, and my real-estate agent relative, who makes a living showing houses to strangers.

It’s not likely that they’ll take a nasty spill or encounter anything untowardly, but if there’s a way to help them feel more cared for and safe, then I’m here for that. I’ll know my care village is a vibrant and dependable one. And this puts us all one step closer to leading a life with dignity, independence and the joy of possibility.

Chia-Lin Simmons is the CEO at LogicMark and a tech veteran with more than 25 years of industry experience. She previously worked at Google, Audible and additional companies before joining LogicMark in 2021. LogicMark provides personal emergency response systems, health communications devices, personal safety apps, services and technologies to create a connected care platform.

The opinions expressed in each McKnight’s Senior Living marketplace 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.

The Department of Labor this morning issued a final rule that will change how senior living companies and other employers determine who is an employee and who is an independent contractor.

The rule is effective March 11.

“The misclassification of employees as independent contractors may deny workers minimum wage, overtime pay and other protections,” the Labor Department said in an online post. “This final rule will reduce the risk that employees are misclassified as independent contractors while providing a consistent approach for businesses that engage with individuals who are in business for themselves.”

The rule also ensures that “employers that comply with the law are not placed at a competitive disadvantage when competing against employers that misclassify employees,” the department said in an email. 

According to the DOL, the final rule:

• Restores the multifactor, totality-of-the-circumstances analysis to assess whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act. 
• Ensures that all factors are analyzed without assigning a predetermined weight to a particular factor or set of factors. 
• Uses the longstanding interpretation of the economic reality factors. Those factors include opportunity for profit or loss depending on managerial skill, investments by the worker and the potential employer, the degree of permanence of the work relationship, the nature and degree of control, the extent to which the work performed is an integral part of the potential employer’s business, and the worker’s skill and initiative.

The new rule also rescinds one issued during the final days of the Trump administration in January 2021. The Labor Department under the Biden administration had sought to delay the rule, and then withdrew it in May 2021, believing that it was inconsistent with the FLSA’s text and purpose. A district court, however, in March 2022 determined that the rule had taken effect on its original effective date and remained in effect.

That rule, Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda said at the time, “legally risked increasing instead of reducing misclassifications because it narrowed the facts and basis for determining whether a worker is an employee under the FLSA” and was ”out of sync” with what the courts had been saying for decades.

In June 2022, the DOL announced plans to hold public forums to gather feedback on writing a new rule. A proposed rule was issued in October of that year.

Tuesday, the Labor Department said it had received “thousands of comments from a diverse array of stakeholders that helped inform the regulatory updates” during a comment period that was open through November 2022.

The rule issued Tuesday has not been published in the Federal Register yet but is available as a PDF. Read it here.

Editor’s note, Jan. 10: Read the follow-up story with industry reaction here.

Some of Broadway’s biggest child stars — Corey J from The Lion King and MJ: The Musical, Benjamin Pajak from “The Music Man,” “Oliver!,” and “Golden Rainbow,” Aria Kane from “Frozen Broadway,” and Jillian Platero from “The Lion King” — recently performed for residents of Inspīr Carnegie Hill in Manhattan.

Many of the residents’ grandkids and great-grandkids enjoyed the performances as well.

Inspīr has hosted numerous performers from the Great White Way — including Alex Edelman, Jeffrey Seller, Manny Azenberg, Lisa Howard, Michael Winther, Julie Benko,  Talia Suskauer, Ari Axelrod, Natalie Joy Johnson, Timothy Hughes and more — but this was the first time the community heard from some of Broadway’s youngest performers, who shared with residents their experiences growing up in the limelight.

Evan Rossi, senior director of resident experience, has forged connections to the theater world to make the performances possible. Sometimes, performers even initiate the request to perform at Inspīr.

Inspīr Carnegie Hill was developed by Maplewood Senior Living in partnership with Omega Healthcare Investors.

See the In Focus archive, and find out how to submit your photos and information for consideration, here.

During our final session, we tried to help them pare back their goals, but they fell into the problem many companies are facing. They were struggling to prioritize and, against our advice, they felt that they needed to begin to address each item all at once. 

Senior living business leaders and companies are facing a very similar challenge in 2024, and should they fail to focus and prioritize addressing the greatest issues they face, they will soon find themselves asking how they didn’t make any headway in 2024 and what to do about it in 2025.

This can prove challenging, as these companies aim to meet immediate financial targets and operational goals while they also need to lay the groundwork for sustainable growth, innovation and quality improvement in the long term. To cut through the noise, leaders must strategically focus and prioritize the right challenge by determining its urgency over its relative standing in the hype cycle.

So, let me help with that. Here are the four challenges and their implications that leaders and companies could face that must be addressed if they are to not only survive 2024 but thrive.

1. Today’s trendiest AI isn’t everyone’s best tool

Senior living businesses have arrived at a crossroads in 2024. Integrating artificial intelligence into general business practices has become an imperative and an untenable obstacle course.

Many companies are moving forward with the misguided hope that the benefits will outweigh the upfront costs, and that can be true. AI can personalize care, customize resident plans, provide predictive analytics and tell you what your budget could be next year.

Companies, however, will need to make smart choices, as not all AI models are built and, more importantly, trained, equally. Choosing the wrong model means a potential for a closed-loop input system where the model does not consider outside needs of potential future customers other than what it was trained on.

To make the most of AI, businesses should prioritize models that have transparency and ones that can help them fix their fragmented data. Siloed records, notes, charts and schedules in multiple platforms that lack interoperability means there will be limited value in the analytics from a model only able to pull from one source of data. The integration challenges are real, but the potential is transformative.

2. The demographic cliff

It’s not news to you that senior living businesses are facing the stark reality of the increasing number of potential residents and a lack of talent to care for them. As baby boomers continue to age and look to move into active-adult or various other tiered classes of caregiving, not only are the communities lacking or nonexistent, but so are the caregivers. Flexible working options and higher pay elsewhere are fueling resignations.

To address those challenges, businesses need to consider new development routes for staff and properties. Considerations for creativity in how administrative roles are staffed and developed through training and upskilling local community members is one way to start.

Long term, the labor shortage may mean rethinking on-demand workers over full-time hires. Also, there is the potential for modular construction, and investors looking to be recession-resilient could mean new forms of capital that could allow for the right-sizing of the units and technologic improvements needed.

3. Transparency versus personalization versus privacy

Senior living companies have leaned heavily on personalization to drive engagement. Data collection can provide unique offerings, especially with the advent of wearables, which can help customize meal plans, activities, amenities and medicine, but consumers and clients have begun to demand more privacy and protection of their data.

Businesses must become more transparent about where they collect data, where outside data are being used and what is done with them. If done successfully, the transparency can bolster engagement and increase communication between the residents and the communities, another potential data perk.

Equally important will be open communication on issues such as sustainability, social responsibility and employee well-being. Today’s residents and families expect more transparency. Companies that honestly address their practices and shortcomings will build trust. 

4. Inflexibility in your future direction

Operators facing these pressures often suffer from a lack of agility and flexibility in their planning. Anticipating future challenges in healthcare and demographics is crucial yet challenging, especially with limited resources, as those challenges constantly move.

Even with prioritized challenges to address, however, leaders must be open to being nimble enough to adapt their hardened three- to five-year plans while also realizing that type of planning needs to shift to become 10- to 15-year planning. This change will allow them to be ready for shifts in behaviors, to grow as digital health evolves, residents’ preferences morph and staffing dynamics shift.

Allowing for re-perception of the challenges and trends that are faced throughout the year will allow companies to be proactive instead of responsive. Most companies lack this flexibility, which ultimately means they stay the course when they need to pivot and, in doing so, become obsolete to the whims of their clients and residents.

In 2024, these challenges and trends are not just obstacles but also catalysts for innovation and improvement. For business leaders, particularly in the senior living industry, addressing these challenges head-on is not just about survival but also about thriving in an ever-changing landscape. By doing so, you can ensure sustained growth, improved service quality and enhanced operational efficiency, ultimately leading to long-term success and a positive impact on your communities.

Mark Bryan is the senior foresight manager at the Future Today Institute, an advisory firm specializing in strategic foresight aimed at driving corporate strategies that lead to long-term success and resilience. The institute partners with leaders of Fortune 500 companies, world governments and other major organizations to help them pivot, adapt and thrive in the face of disruptive change.

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.

• In discussions, lead off by talking about the more popular flu vaccine.
• Be consistent in your messaging about the safety and effectiveness of both vaccines.
• Address people’s vaccine-specific beliefs, such as the limits of protection from prior COVID infections. 

The research, which included a July survey of more than 2,000 adults, including 659 of whom were aged 50 or more years, 71% of the older adults said it was “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that they would get the flu vaccine, and 64% said it was very or somewhat likely that they would get the updated COVID vaccine. Forty-nine and 50% of the older adults, respectively said they thought that the flu and COVID vaccines were “very effective,” and 65% and 51%, respectively, thought that they were “very safe.”

The survey results also reveal the most common reasons that some respondents said they are hesitant about vaccination, which can help you with your talking points.

Among those 50 and older who said they were “not very likely” to get the flu vaccine, the top three reasons were that they would prefer to get natural immunity from becoming ill (35%), that they don’t trust the government agencies that promote vaccination (33%) and that they feel as if people are expected to get too many vaccines in general (31%).

Among those 50 and older who said they were “not very likely” to get the COVID vaccine, the top three reasons were that they want to see more research done on the vaccine (62%), that they are worried about the vaccine’s safety (59%) and that they don’t trust the government agencies that promote vaccination (55%).

(You can read about the other concerns of respondents, including those aged 18 to 64, here.)

Other recent research also provides motivation for staying current with vaccines:

• For instance, an analysis of more than 10 million cases of COVID-19 in adults between May 2020 and February 2022, published in December in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, found that among adults aged more than 50, the case fatality risk was 10 times higher in the unvaccinated compared with those who had been vaccinated within six months before testing positive for COVID-19.
• Research published in December in Lancet Infectious Diseases indicates that people hospitalized with seasonal flu also can end up with “long flu,” long-term, negative health effects, especially involving their lungs and airways.

See the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website for more information and resources about COVID and flu vaccination for long-term care residents or workers — long-term care workers have relatively low vaccination rates compared with other healthcare personnel.

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

But other dangers exist, too; the process of hiring can consume substantial amounts of time and resources. Failing to identify unsuitable candidates in a timely manner will result in malinvestment, even if the candidate is never hired.

And yet, hiring remains a top priority. As disconcerting as the stakes may be, properly carrying out background checks is a necessary and ultimately rewarding effort.

To help senior living communities navigate this process successfully, I’ll discuss the three most common errors organizations make.

1.  Ignorance-induced legal risks

Litigation is a top concern for any senior living employer conducting background checks. Employers should ensure full understanding and compliance with both local and federal legislation long before even designing their policy, not to mention running an actual check.

Laws governing the hiring process will vary widely based on location and the nature of the position. They tend to specify certain aspects of the procedure, such as information that must be communicated to candidates throughout the screening process. Restrictions and regulations on using acquired data also are common, with consideration of marijuana use or criminal backgrounds being notable examples.

Whatever the particulars may be, any given organization will be subject to a specific, often unique, set of laws. Failure to adhere to such legislation may expose a company to potential lawsuits, which can easily cost millions of dollars in settlements and legal fees. When it comes to the law, due diligence is always due.

2. Flexibility without framework

Oftentimes, approaching the screening process on a case-by-case basis is the path of least resistance. Although each position should be given unique consideration, improvisation always will land a company in hot water.

The underlying factor here is that lack of consistency increases the likelihood of legal negligence. Without a pre-decided policy, it is much easier for an employer to disregard certain legal guidelines or restrictions that otherwise might be detailed in a well-prepared plan. Once such a policy has been created, staying aligned with the law is merely a matter of ensuring that it remains up-to-date. 

Another serious concern is that an unorganized background check always will lack the efficiency of a carefully designed workflow. Organizing how screenings and communications, among other things, will take place ensures that a company’s background check does not waste resources.  

3. Using unclear criteria

Finally, senior living organizations often try to speed up the screening process by sending all candidates through a single filter. The faults with such an approach, however, are obvious. Unclear criteria consistently will deny competent workers where parameters are too strict and allow unsuitable workers where parameters are too loose. For this reason, companies must establish job-specific criteria.

The first criteria to consider are criminal backgrounds, because — yet again — the law must be considered first and foremost. Legislation often will regulate which workers can be employed in certain fields, such as working with older adults, based on criminal records. Although background checks in this industry are more extensive than in most other industries, some offenses should not disqualify candidates for certain positions.

Non-criminal criteria like work experience, licensing, references, and referrals should also be job-specific. While there is not much flexibility here, organizations must decide for themselves where to set the bar for each position — something that may change with the job market. 

Bottom line

The process of screening candidates for hire is not simple for senior living employers. After all, it is a matter of life and death. With legal and economic concerns around every corner, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. When taken into account, those mistakes cannot only be carefully avoided but can guide a company in executing robust background checks that offer peace of mind and allow its workforce, and living community, to prosper.

Jeff Ernste is chief sales and marketing officer with Minneapolis-based Orange Tree Employment Screening. For more than 30 years, Orange Tree has provided technology-enabled background screening, drug testing and occupational health services for clients nationwide.

The opinions expressed in each McKnight’s Senior Living marketplace 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.

Completion of changes to a 35-community Brookdale Senior Living portfolio owned by Westlake Village, CA-based LTC Properties has resulted in 17 communities being re-leased to Brentwood, TN-based Brookdale, eight communities being sold, the operation of five communities being transferred to Oxford Senior Living, and the operation of five other communities being transferred to Navion Senior Solutions.

The real estate investment trust, which announced the changes late Monday, said it expects net proceeds of $23 million and an anticipated net gain of $17 million related to the property sales.

“We are pleased to have reached a favorable outcome,” LTC Chairman and CEO Wendy Simpson said in a statement. “Importantly, rent from the previous portfolio has been fully replaced, and we’ve generated sales proceeds to pay down a portion of our debt, which was incurred to pre-fund accretive investments earlier this year.”

The transactions resulted in three new master leases. Revenue from the portfolio will be fully replaced through a combination of new leases, interest related to seller financing, and pre-invested proceeds at a weighted average yield of 8.5%, according to the REIT.

LTC’s portfolio still will contain Brookdale communities but said the moves reduce its revenue concentration from Brookdale by 40%. In April, LTC Chief Investment Officer and Co-President Clint Malin said that the REIT would “welcome the opportunity to reduce operator concentration.”

As of Sept. 30, LTC’s senior living and care portfolio included 29 operators and 208 properties. Of them, there were 42 ALG Senior communities, 35 Brookdale properties, 24 Prestige Healthcare communities, 13 HMG Healthcare properties, 12 Anthem Memory care communities, seven Ignite Medical Resorts properties, seven Ark Post-Acute Network facilities, six Genesis Healthcare properties, five Fundamental facilities, four Carespring Health Care Management properties, and 53 settings managed by other senior living and care operators, according to a presentation posted on LTC’s website.

The 17 communities that LTC re-leased to Brookdale are located across four states — Colorado (six), Texas (six), Kansas (four) and Ohio (one) — and have a total of 738 units. The new master lease, which was effective in January, has a duration of six years at an initial annual rent of $9.3 million.

On the REIT’s first-quarter 2023 earnings call, Malin said that the Brookdale properties that LTC planned to keep have “much higher” EBITDAR (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and restructuring or rent costs). Rate growth and occupancy trends in LTC’s Brookdale portfolio were similar to those that Brookdale has publicly disclosed for its overall portfolio, he added.

The eight communities that were sold are located across three states — Florida (four), South Carolina (three) and Oklahoma (one) — and have a total of 341 units. LTC said they were sold for $28 million, that REIT received $23.2 million in proceeds net of transaction costs and seller financing, and that it anticipates recording a gain of $17 million related to the sales. 

LTC provided financing to the seller, with two of the Florida properties, with a total of 92 units, serving as collateral. The $4 million seller-financed mortgage loan term is two years, with a one-year extension, at an interest rate of 8.75%.

As for the communities for which management was transferred to new operators, the five communities now operated by Oxford are located in Oklahoma and have a total of 184 units. Oxford already operated senior living communities in LTC’s portfolio.

The new master lease, which began in November, has a duration of three years, with one four-year extension, at an initial annual rent of $960,000.

The five communities now operated by Navion are located in North Carolina and have a total of 210 units. Navion did not previously have a relationship with LTC. The master lease, which began in January, has a six-year duration at an initial annual rent of $3.3 million.

In the first half of 2023, LTC Properties had announced plans to sell approximately half of the 35 Brookdale communities it owned and re-lease the other half after Brookdale opted not to renew its lease with the REIT. LTC reported in October, however, that it would be re-leasing 17 of the 35 properties back to Brookdale under a new six-year master lease beginning Jan. 1.

The exact fates of all 35 communities previously had not been announced.

Former ABHOW CEO David Ferguson passes away

David Ferguson, the long-term leader of American Baptist Homes of the West, died Friday evening. HumanGood President and CEO John Cochrane posted the news on LinkedIn on Sunday.

Cochrane called Ferguson “a literal and figurative giant.”

Ferguson had been with ABHOW for almost 25 years — joining the company in 1992 and becoming CEO in 1995 — when the organization in 2015 announced plans to merge with the be.group, where Cochrane was CEO. At the time, Ferguson told McKnight’s Senior Living that he had approached fellow California nonprofit about a potential affiliation five years earlier.

The merger was completed in 2016, forming a company that served almost 10,000 residents in 84 communities across Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and Washington. As planned, Ferguson transitioned into the role of executive adviser and Cochrane became president and CEO of the combined organization. The company’s name change to HumanGood came in 2017.

“Without Dave Ferguson there would not be the organization that is now HumanGood,” Cochrane said Sunday.

“A giant of a man with a giant heart for helping people age well, Dave was not only an accomplished leader for ABHOW, but he was also a pioneering leader for our field as a whole,” he said, noting that Ferguson had been “instrumental” in the founding of LeadingAge and “a strong and tireless advocate for efforts to attract and develop the best team members dedicated to meeting the needs of an aging population.”

Integral Senior Living names Zachary Butcher regional VP

Zachary Butcher has been named regional vice president of operational services at Carlsbad, CA-based Integral Senior Living. 

Over the past 12 years, Butcher has held several positions in the senior living industry, including community-based positions, as a sales manager and executive director, as well as regional and corporate roles as a vice president of operations for Brookdale Senior Living and chief operating officer for Novellus Living. 

After earning his undergraduate degree at Arizona State University, Butcher went on to obtain his MBA from Western Governors University with a concentration in healthcare management. He also completed Argentum’s Leadership Advancement and Development Program program. 

BHI names Kevin Ward senior operations director

Kevin Ward has been named senior operations director at Indianapolis-based BHI Senior Living. In this newly created role, he will bolster operations initiatives for the company.

After several years of working with children with disabilities, Ward began working in senior living as the director of social services at Wesley Manor in Frankfort, IN, in 2000.  He earned his health facility administrator license in 2004 and became administrator of record.  Following the community’s affiliation with BHI in 2016, he was named executive director of Wesley Manor.

More recently, his work with BHI has included special projects focused on quality initiatives, capital projects and business development in Indiana and Michigan communities. BHI owns and operates nine life plan communities.

Hebrew SeniorLife promotes LuAnn Fitzgerald

LuAnn Fitzgerald has been promoted to senior director of quality, safety and regulatory affairs at Hebrew SeniorLife.

Fitzgerald began her career as a physical therapist in 1984. She earned her undergraduate degree from Boston University and her law degree from Suffolk Law School.

LCB names Jane Kiegel development director

Jane Kiegel has been named development director for The Residence at Bedford, an LCB Senior Living community expected to open this year in Bedford, MA. 

Kiegel has 23 years of experience in combined sales, operations and business management within the senior living industry. Previously, she was the general manager for WayForth in Boston.

Kiegel holds an undergraduate degree in healthcare administration from Stonehill College. She is a licensed real estate agent.

Plunkett Raysich Architects promotes Jedd Heap

Jedd Heap has been promoted to partner at Plunkett Raysich Architects, which has offices in Wisconsin, Florida and Texas. 

Heap is a licensed Florida architect with almost 25 years of experience serving clients. He has been actively involved in more than 80 projects during his first four years at PRA.

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

See previous “People in the news” articles here.