A Sage, Bright and Energetic Community

Chris Keysor, Lenbrook President & CEO
March 23, 2016

This school year we partnered with Cristo Rey Atlanta Jesuit High School and, through their work study program, we welcomed four interns to our campus. Each student works one full day a week plus a rotating Monday. It’s a delightful and beneficial experience for both sides — the students share their fresh perspectives and technology proficiency with us and our associates share their business knowledge and job skills with them.

Also, unlike other Cristo Rey work study partners, our interns have the chance to interact directly with our customers, our residents, who share their broad range of life experiences.

Sage

Recently, Cristo Rey gave the interns an interesting homework assignment. They asked each intern to pick one word they would use to describe Lenbrook. The first word offered was “sage” (actually, it was “sagacity,” a form of the word sage) since they find themselves surrounded by life’s wisdom and insight here at Lenbrook.

Bright and Energetic

The next words offered were “bright and energetic,” which interestingly are words we could have easily chosen to describe them!

Granted, we do have a lot of bench strength with wisdom and insight here among our 500 residents. But the words bright and energetic especially resonated with me since I often hear those exact same words from our residents. They’ll often recount to me their first experience with Lenbrook: “The minute I walked into Lenbrook, I could feel the energy and vitality around me.” And they continue to feel it everyday.

Community

This word exercise got me to thinking about the importance of a single word and what word I would pick to describe Lenbrook. For me, the word I’d like to suggest is “community.” Lenbrook is a true community in so many ways:

We are a community of people who share the desire to live full and engaging lives;

We are a community of people who share the fun stuff of life — outings, exercise, arts and culture, intellectual pursuits, charitable causes, worship, dining and more;

We are a community of residents and associates who greet each other with smiles and call each other by name; and

We are a community of people who provide support and rally around each other when difficult circumstances arise along this journey of life.

Our field has been conducting research over the past year into words that better describe “Continuing Care Retirement Communities” like Lenbrook. That term and its acronym “CCRC” don’t seem to do these communities justice.

Based on that research, the senior living field is now shifting to the use of the term “Life Plan Community” in place of “Continuing Care Retirement Community.” Notice anything similar in those terms? Yep, it’s the word “community.” And I’m good with that.

Chris Keysor is President and Chief Executive Officer of Lenbrook. His passion for the senior living industry began early in his career as a CPA with KPMG Peat Marwick. Chris progressed in executive responsibilities over the years, working for a senior healthcare provider, healthcare financing organizations and senior living consulting groups. Chris is also a nationally ranked Ironman triathlete, which he says comes in handy raising his two young children with his wife here in Atlanta.