 Kay Kallander, ABHOW’s senior vice president for strategic planning, was named Mentor of the Year by the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging at its October 2008 annual meeting. Kallander considers her dedication to cultivating future leaders “a pay it forward situation” and the only way she knows to thank her own mentors.When she entered the field of aging services more than 20 years ago, she says, Bob Balsley, then administrator at the Plymouth Village continuing care retirement community in Redlands, Calif., took great care to provide her with the training and experiences she would need when she herself became administrator there. Dr. Richard Ice, president emeritus of ABHOW, encouraged her to take her work on dementia care to an international audience, and current President David Ferguson challenges and supports her in all her endeavors. Kallander is working with a team to enhance the current ABHOW Administrator-in-Training program to include leadership development within both the continuing care retirement communities and the affordable housing communities. She also helped design the three-year-old Leadership AAHSA program, which develops exceptional individuals in senior living organizations across the nation. Kallander motivates those she mentors by having faith in them. “She saw more than what we were,” says one leader in Kallander’s award nomination. “She saw what we were to become.” “Kay affords people the opportunity to turn their potential into reality, their dreams into destiny,” says another. “Her impact cannot be measured because there is no telling where her influence will stop.” Helping emerging leaders develop their strengths is a wonderfully rich experience, Kallander says, one that makes her stronger and makes ABHOW better. “An organization committed to mentoring is an organization that will see strength over the years,” she says. |
