Memorial Day & Board Week

So how did you spend your Memorial day weekend? I spent Saturday doing yard and garden work until enjoying the latter part of the day and evening at a neighborhood party. Sunday I went golfing with my brother-in-law and picked up right where I left off last year by not breaking 100. I guess I will break down and use the golf instruction gift certificate my wife bought me last Christmas. Monday we hosted a small family graduation celebration for our nephew who graduated from Potsdam SUNY college and is now off to earn his masters. What a beautiful 3-day weekend. I hope you all got a chance to enjoy and relax in your own special way!

Back at work on Tuesday saw a lot of productive time squeezed into a short week. I was able to finish off a comprehensive "White Paper" that summarizes the critical financial issues and options pertaining to our Kirkhaven Replacement Project. This paper is the culmination of a lot of strategic analysis and review that provides clarification and a road map around the major financial related hurdles we will need to navigate. The Kirkhaven Replacement Project currently has 3 distinct major elements that we are actively working on:

* Facility vision & design
* Site location
* Financial considerations

The Financial Considerations White Paper is being presented and discussed at next week's Building & Ground's committee meeting and then will be distributed for information to the Board. If you would like an advance copy, please send me an e-mail request and I will send you the document file.

At the Kirkhaven Board meeting, the board was introduced to our ace nursing administration team. Nadine, Etta and Michelle presented an educational sound-byte to orient the board to the structure and goals of the nursing department. Jim III was introduced to the board and shared some of his background and immediate department goals. The balance of the meeting was dedicated to reports and discussion pertaining to Amanda's facility operations update report and the progress reports from the Resident Life and Building & Grounds Committee. We have a very supportive and active board that cares about our residents and our mission.

At the Valley Manor Board meeting, we dedicated all our time to a progress report by the Greystone team. They are only about 60% into the project so the emphasis of their presentation was more on an orientation of their organization, personnel, experience and project approach. They outlined the project deliverables and timeline and gave the board some initial impressions from their earlier site visit and review to date. They are aiming for the August 6 Seniorsfirst Board meeting to present their final report and recommendations. We are blessed to have some key board member participation and support with this critical and challenging project of major significance.

Other activity and development from the week include a final management decision and recommendation to take to the board concerning our 401(k) pension plan. After much analysis and dialog, we will recommend a plan administered through the team of Fidelity Investments and Morgan Stanley Advisors. On a related subject, another management decision was reached concerning our contract pension actuary for the defined benefit pension plan. After interviewing and reviewing competitive proposals we will hire the local firm of Gallagher & Associates to replace our long time actuary of Longacre & Associates. We also had a bisque fund-raiser planning meeting and our Chair, Jean Boyle, led us to some key decisions concerning setting the date of September 19 for our next 1-day sale event, aiming to add at least 1 additional site on the South or North side of town, and establishing some marketing/public relations ideas.

In other news, I continue to lead a RAHSA initiative to restructure our local membership association including the Criminal Background Check joint-venture program. This has turned into a major project and challenge that I am now committed more than ever to fix. I see a light at the end of the tunnel and hope to finish this off in a few more weeks.

On a sad note, I have received formal notice from Dr. Jurik that he is retiring form the medical field at the end of this September. He came to see me and ensured me that it is not the result of anything more than he is tired and ready to hang up his stethoscope. Unfortunately, his practice doesn't have adequate physician coverage to continue providing service to Kirkhaven, so we will be recruiting a new physician group. I am sharing this with you in advance of any official announcement just to give my Blog a sense of "you heard it here first" importance:)

Hey, be sure to keep Jean Boyle in your thoughts as she has a hip replacement surgery on Monday, followed by a 6 week recoupment and rehabilitation leave-of-absence. Folks are starting to send in their summer vacation requests, which is helpful for me to plan accordingly. I plan to be gone from July 3-13 for my time at the cottage on Indian Lake.

Have a great week and in closing, here is my practice attempt to drop in some pictures so in the future I can share some work related pictures to help capture the essence of the week.

Grandson's #1 and #3- Brennan Daniel holding his new baby brother, Logan James.

Grandson #2- Dylan John

NYAHSA Annual Spring Conference

The majority of my week was dedicated to attending our State Association's Annual Spring Conference held in Saratoga Springs. The weather was cool and rainy which made it easy to focus on the educational and networking opportunities that were plentiful.

I arrived Monday evening and met up with some of my peers for dinner before heading out to a vendor-sponsored networking party where I met up with many vendors and peers to share conversation and fellowship. Tuesday was full of educational seminars and vender exhibit followed by a NYAHSA sponsored dinner event. The entertainment was a group of political satirists called "Capital Steps" who has the audience in stiches with their skits, songs and jokes. As they acknowledged right up front, the current national and state political scene provides the kind of material they could only dream of!

Wednesday was another full day of seminars follwed by a half day on Thursday, ending with an outstanding closing session that focused on "warming up the workplace". All in all, I thought the seminars I attended were all outstanding. I always find that this conference includes the most relevant issues most closely aligned with the challenges we are currently facing. The information and education provided has a high percentage of immediate impact on both operational and strategic components of our business. I will be introducing some leadership and strategic concepts, that I picked up at the conference, in the very near future.

Thank you to the leadership team back home that kept things going while Amanda, Cheryl and I were attending this conference. I was able to stay connected via my e-mail and voice-mail, but it is always comforting to know that our team is deep enough to maintain operations without any problems when other key staff are away.

When we return to work next week after the long Memorial Day Weekend, we will hit the ground running, I will attend the Valley Manor Gentleman's breakfast and participate in a 401(k) planning meeting and a lobster bisque fundraiser planning meeting. We have our Senior Leadership Team strategy meeting and both the Kirkhaven and Valley Manor board of director's meetings.

I'm looking forward to the long weekend and plan to go out and watch the Senior PGA Open on Saturday. Jen and I are hosting a graduation diiner party for our nephew who graduates from college and I hope to get out to play my first round of golf on Sunday. Hope the holiday weekend brings everyone some well deserved R & R.

Greystone Communities Comes to Valley Manor

We were thrilled to finally have the Greystone team arrive on Tuesday for their site visit at Valley Manor. Their team consisted of 5 individuals with distinct skillsets in the areas of physical plant, marketing, operations, finance and project manangement.
The Valley Manor team consisted of myself, Cheryl, Scott, Eric and Jim. We started our day with a 1.5 hour tour of the facility and grounds followed by a 1.5 hour information sharing and ideation session. We then continued our discussions over a working lunch before breaking out into smaller work groups to focus on the specific areas of physical plant, operations, marketing and finance. Other staff and some resident board members joined the breakout groups to participate in these strategy sessions.
After giving the Greystone team an opportunity to collect their thoughts and share notes, we all reunited for a wrapup session and discussion of next steps. On their way back to their hotel, I took on them on a quick stop to see Kirkhaven (from the outside) and to see what the Strathallen Hotel is doing to dress up the exterior of their old building.
I had an unrealistic hope that their arrival would instantly and magically
discover some "silver bullet" to solve all our problems. The truth being, they came, they looked and they listened. Then they confirmed what we already knew. The good news is that they also told us they have seen this before and that we were more timely them many in starting to take corrective action. They were optimistic that they would be able to present us with both short-term and long-term strategies to reposition us for improved occupancy. One of the team members stayed in Rochester an additional day to conduct a competitive analysis, while the others will return to Texas where they will continue to formulate our plan.
They will be back in a few weeks to share some initial feedback and process with the Valley Manor board at the May 29 board meeting. The project is not expected to be finished for another month or two at which time a final plan will be presented to the Seniorsfirst board. In the interim, they will continue to work with us, have additional site visits as needed and plug away at the project objectives. The broad perspective and experience they add to the talent and experience our own team brings to the table, should result in a comprehensive and effective strategic plan for the future direction and operation of Valley Manor.

In other news.................the HR Committee discussed and approved surveying our staff again in 2008 with the same Employee Opinion Survey used last year. They concurred that we should be surveying our staff annually, the same as we do with our resident customers. In 2009, they have opted to try using a national employee survey tool to enable us to benchmark our results with other organizations. Cass will spearhead a process to evaluate and select an appropriate survey tool to accomodate this objective........................
the Marketing Committee met for the first time with Jim sitting in the VP of Marketing and Community Services seat. The meeting included a lot of strategy discussion, planning and organization. The team of Jim and Cilla bring a new passion and vision that will be exciting to watch unfold. Aside from a good meeting, the other hilarious occurence at this meeting was the "unknown visitor". Seems there was a community networking group also meeting in the building and one of their participants mistakingly was directed to our Marketing Committee meeting. Between Jim, Cilla and I, we all thought the other had invited her to join our committee and just went with the flow. Ironically, she was in the marketing business and knew Jim. She fit in well and actually contributed to the meeting discussion. After the meeting, I asked Jim who she was and he and Cilla both said "beats me, I thought you invited her"(LOL). When we finally solved the mystery, it was really pretty funny...........
the Development Committee also met this past week and they spent most of the time talking about ways to engage our board more in fund raising and friend raising. Major gift giving and grant solicitation is a key ingredient to our fund raising strategy, but that can't be accomplished by Jean alone. Most not-for-profit boards are very active in the fund raising efforts and with the Committee's leadership, we hope to better engage our own board in this objective.

Was it me or were there a lot of things going on around the facilities last week? The Spring Fling events were fun and kept the place jumping with novel activities. Retirement parties, interviewing and touring prospective staff, Greystone visit and of course business as usual.

Friday afternoon, I attended a Workers Compensation Self-insurance Trust annual meeting held on behalf of another organization of which I serve on the board. It was very interesting to compare them to our own Self-insurance Trust and I was able to gain extensive insight into this subject matter that will undoubtably serve us well in our own program planning. I'm sure you're jealous that I got to spend my Friday afternoon at the Holiday Inn in Buffalo listening to this exciting topic presentation for 3 hours!

By week's end, I felt I had covered a lot of ground with a lot of different topics and meeting agendas. Not sure where the week went and I didn't have a lot of time for routine desk work, but I am tired and looking forward to my weekend.

This coming week I will be in the office for Monday morning and all day Friday only. In between, I will be attending our NYAHSA conference in Saratoga along with Amanda and Cheryl. Some good educational topics and always good networking opportunities make this conference a must to stay on top of current events in our field. I'm actually not bringing my golf clubs (a first) this time as I continue my quest to make golf an enjoyable pasttime and not an annoying obsession. I haven't even swung a club yet this year!

Hope you all have a great week..................

Welcome to my Blog

As promised, I have created a CEO Blog which I plan to post weekly comments to in an attempt to share with you happening at Seniorsfirst from my CEO perspective. Postings will include a variety of information including some items that will hopefully make reading my Blog fun and interesting as well as informative. It will take me a while to get used to it and learn some of the neat tricks. Be patient with me............

First, some fun stuff. If you haven't been to my office lately, you need to stop by and see the collage of pictures on my office door showing off my new grandson. Logan James Mcdermott was born last weekend and he is soooooooooo cute. Check out the picture to the right with me, grandson #1 and grandson #3.

This past week has actually been a slow week (been a while for one of them). I was able to spend some extensive time coordinating the RAHSA restructuring project which I am heading up. It is a lot of extra work, but I enjoy the opportunity and high profile it provides me with my peers. It is also something different from my usual duties.

I have also had some free time to explore some financial forecasting and analysis with respect to potential options for creating a new community for the existing Kirkhaven building after we move. This is proving to be quite a fiscal challenge, but I love this type of work. I'm exploring the potential of renovating it into moderate-rate senior housing by doubling up the existing rooms to create a 44 apartment facility with the Sout wing continuing to house our corporate support offices.

Amanda and I particpated in a KH building & grounds committee this week where our architects presented our current site drawing and layout of the new KH concept. It still has a long way to go before it is finalized, but we are starting to hone in a vision and concept. It is so exciting, but also very daunting. Pretty soon we can share some initial drawings with you all.

Cass and I had lunch with our labor attorneys and learned the latest developments on the new deferred compensation (403b) regulations. I'm sure you're thinking "wow, what a thrilling dinner conversation". Actually it was and lunch at toranados on their expense budget wasn't bad either.

Scott, Amanda, Jim Payne (we need to find a nickname for Jim) and I participated in a meeting with Innovative Solutions and Freedom Therapy as we continued our dialog on creating a high-tech, flat screen/computer amenity in our rehab rooms. This would create a "WOW" factor for our rehab rooms and provide the resident with everything from HD tv to internet access to music, videos, games and education tv. We will probably pursue a protype room to test the concept.

I spent one afternoon this week doing rounds at VM. Wow does it look great! The grounds have been landscaped and the walls outside of the auditorium area have been drywalled over the concrete. The Freedom Therapy area looks awesome. The gardens are in bloom............

Friday evening I am joined by 5 other staff members who I invited to attend the Alzheimer's Association Gala with me. This represents a nice networking opportunity and it shows our support for another not-for-profit with a related mission to our own. Afterwards, Jen and I are traveling up north for the weekend to spend Mother's Day with her Mom.

Okay, that is my first Blog posting. Hope you enjoyed it. Next week will be hectic but exciting as we welcome the Greystone folks for their initial site visit at VM and have three Seniorsfirst board committee meetings (HR, Marketing & Development). Be sure to visit my Blog next Friday for an update on these items and more!