The CEO Series: Vassar Byrd, The Kendal Corporation, Part 2
By Jim Nelson | February 18, 2025
In part 1 of our conversation with The Kendal Corporation’s CEO, Vassar Byrd, we learned about what she considers to be the most valuable component of Kendal’s Quaker values, how they’re reforming the Kendal Charitable Funds, and the company’s work on a prototype community design that speaks to the need for more middle market senior housing.
“We’re trying to not think of it as CCRC ‘light,’ because that always feels ‘less than,’” Byrd said of the prototype community design they’re thinking through at Kendal. “What is it as a new thing that is more of a contributory partnership opportunity with the residents?”
SENIOR LIVING NEWS: Listening to what you just said about a “prototype community design,” I’m reminded of a quote from Deepak Chopra: “Instead of thinking outside of the box, get rid of the box.” Your answer sounded a lot like you’re getting rid of the box, like, “Let’s imagine, if we want this kind of a community, how would we go about it?” Beyond that vision, what’s new and exciting at Kendal these days?
VASSAR BYRD: You may have heard a little bit about our Zen-inspired senior living in California. Enso Village is open and we’re working on Enso Verde in Southern California. And I would say even though [Enso Village] is a very high-end community based on the cost of living in San Francisco, at the same time it’s a big step toward really focusing on the meaning part, rather than the amenities of senior living alone. I really appreciate that. You don’t have to be Zen to live or work there, but you are obviously responding to the conscious-living element of it; I think that is embodied by the way we’ve designed it and the people who choose to live there reinforce that. I think that it directly improves the experience of living, and certainly aging too, for everybody — the staff and the residents as well. I would like to think through what other partnerships we can come up with that would be equally meaningful in whatever scenario that it goes. That’s a Zen scenario, but there are other potential opportunities.
The other thing that we are really focused on is intergenerational; we’re looking to the future. I want to say at least half of our communities have childcare on the site, and it’s integrated into the community. It means something to be teaching kids and being involved in kids’ lives, and it means something to the kids to have that non-parental support. I’d like to think through how we can do that. Maybe we provide student housing, and we do a work-study program at the community. Is there a way that we can loosen some of the regs? Frankly, they do this in the Netherlands [Editor’s note: Vassar’s referring to The Hogeweyk Dementia Village in Weesp, Netherlands]. They’re able to have college students living in actual nursing homes and of course, we can’t do that with our regulations. Why is that? I think there’s an opportunity to think through who is on that campus when we build those actual physical environments that will, by definition, sort of open it up and not only serve the seniors, but the next generation of kids who understand aging in a completely different way. I mean, I certainly have friends who thought one thing when I said I was working at senior living; they had an image in their head of some dreary nursing home. And then they actually came to Rose Villa [Senior Living in Portland. Oregon] and it was like, “Oh, my God, this is like a cool neighborhood down the street.” So, I would like to have every college student have their mind blown like that, so that then, as we go forward, nobody thinks about aging in the same way. [Aging is] the filet mignon of life — you’re lucky if you get there.
SLN: How’s it going at Kendal with regard to hiring and retention? Are you trying anything new that looks promising or that you’ve got a lot of confidence in that might help turn the tide a little bit?
VB: I would say that it’s getting a little bit better, but I think that some of the issues are just so structural. I met with Washington State University School of Nursing when I was back on the west coast [recently], and thinking through, “How do you open the funnel to create more healthcare workers?” That is a very tiny funnel right now given the requirements of the nurse teachers, and the shortage of people who want to do that, particularly post-COVID. That has to be a structural change. I think advocating for that state by state, with their Board of Nursing and finding nurse partners, is one thing that you must do, and I think that will make a difference at some point but there’s a lag time.
The other structural issue is certainly immigration. I don’t know if you’ve spoken to Presbyterian Homes & Services; they’re all over trying to get nurses from other countries, to create a pipeline so that they have a meaningful job here, being mindful their countries need healthcare workers, too. It’s just a difficult situation, but given recent issues, politically, it’s been hard to really open those pipelines. I think that it’s going to be a problem for a while.
I approve of telemedicine as a helpful tool. I think there’s all kinds of ways to deploy that, and that’s going to take some of the pressure off, and thinking through where you need actual medical care versus companionship, and then what does that companionship look like? Is that a college student? There are some ways to decrease the acuity of it, but it’s really small steps, I’m sorry to say.
SLN: Another topic of conversation that comes up all the time is, how are we using technology in this profession? Kendal at Oberlin in Ohio has just introduced Floorence, an energy efficient cleaning robot. How that’s working out?
VB: I’m really excited for them. I would say that is a really appropriate use of technology, because I don’t know that you need to have a personal relationship with the person that cleans your house. You might with someone who’s taking care of your body, but that’s a great place to put a machine, honestly.
SLN: Is there anything in the resident engagement realm that you’d love to make sure you mention?
VB: The thing that struck me when I first joined Kendal — and it made me feel really at home in a very different environment — is the focus on sustainability at every single one of the Kendal Affiliate campuses. One thing we do that I am super proud of, and we’ll be producing some standards about this very soon based on Kendal Affiliates’ experiences, is that every single Affiliate does some very involved work around energy sustainability. Many of them are figuring out their carbon footprint. Kendal at Oberlin has a full dark sky lighting program that will not interrupt the migratory paths of birds that we’d like to roll out to everyone else. There are people that are converting traditional boilers to electric and other style of boilers. It’s an incredible movement, really, to lessen our impact on the earth, and it’s led by all of these residents who are super smart, retired engineers and professors who know what they’re doing. Resident engagement-wise, that’s the best partnership I could hope for. I am thrilled that they are doing this work, and we are trying to support them, and then pull it together for some learning lessons for other organizations. I know it’s very hard to step out on a limb when you’re by yourself in a single site, like, “Oh, we’re going to spend a lot of money on this thing up front, and we hope it will return.” The more we can demonstrate how to do that and how well it works, and what the financial costs and rewards are, the more it will be implemented everywhere. My goal is to be copy-catted everywhere, in all our best practices.
