Mildred Makamure

Mildred Makamure knows what makes a great leader because she saw one in action while qualifying for her California nursing home administrator license.

Last year, as part of ABHOW’s administrator-in-training program, Makamure was paired with Keith Kasin, executive director of Plymouth Village in Redlands, Calif., to complete the 1,000-hour internship necessary to earn her administrator’s license. She plans to take the final licensing exam in August.

“I was learning from someone who was doing the job, and what he said was how he lived it,” Makamure says. “ABHOW tailors the program to how we do things within ABHOW. In addition to meeting state requirements, trainees get an additional layer of understanding that is unique to ABHOW.”

The mentoring relationship paid off. Makamure, who was previously the administrator of ABHOW’s two Redlands affordable housing communities, Casa de la Vista and Fern Lodge, was promoted in February to property supervisor for eight communities.

Makamure’s experience is just one example of how ABHOW’s efforts to create great leaders have gained momentum in the past year through a renewed effort to cultivate candidates from within the company.

ABHOW’s internal development effort benefits from its experience on the national level. This year, as in each of the four years since the program’s inception, an ABHOW employee has been chosen as a Leadership Fellow with the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA), which represents 5,000 nonprofit nursing homes, retirement communities, assisted living residences and senior housing communities.

This year the honor went to Ancel Romero, senior vice president for affordable housing. He and ABHOW’s three other fellows are helping develop Leadership ABHOW, a company-wide course designed to create a ready reserve of trained and licensed employees who can move into management-level positions as they become available.

“The fellows are helping me by developing curriculum and being mentors and leaders-in-residence,” says Kay Kallander, senior vice president for strategic planning. “I have this roster of people who have gone through the experience and are now giving back to their colleagues at ABHOW.”

Leadership ABHOW, which welcomed its first class in June, will prepare a select group of employees for the licensing process while simultaneously imparting ABHOW history, values and best practices. Ten team members from across the company will spend a year visiting ABHOW communities and learning from other leaders like Makamure, who spoke to the kickoff session about her own training experience.

Portions of Leadership ABHOW draw on a six-month executive director-in-training program developed by Tara McGuinness, vice president and regional operations manager. “This program will help secure our communities’ futures and our residents’ futures by ensuring that we have capable and compassionate leaders,” she says.

The program consists of four separate two- and three-day workshops that combine training in two tracks: CCRC administrator and affordable housing administrator. Kallander hopes to eventually add a third track for directors of nursing.
After just its first session in June, Leadership

ABHOW offers a glimpse of how the program will help develop a new generation of leaders for the company’s communities.

“I’m more than pleased,” Kallander says. “At the end of the day, you would have thought they had worked together for 15 years.”

About Plymouth Village
Plymouth Village is a retirement community dedicated to serving our residents with the best of care, services, and community spirit. Along with our residential living services, we offer a continuum of care that includes assisted living and skilled nursing care if needed, delivered right here on campus. We are licensed by the state Department of Health Services and accredited by the Continuing Care Accreditation Commission of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. We are located in Redlands, California, a town that was established in 1888 at the base of the magnificent San Bernardino Mountains. With the outstanding private University of Redlands and world-renowned businesses, this town of 70,000 residents has thrived and prospered.

Plymouth Village is a community of the American Baptist Homes of the West (ABHOW). ABHOW is a trusted nonprofit provider of quality retirement housing and health care services (www.abhow.com). As an expression of its Judeo-Christian mission, ABHOW seeks to enhance the well-being and security of seniors through the provision of housing, health care, and supportive services. For more information on Plymouth Village please visit our website at www.plymouthvillage.org.

To learn more about ABHOW visit www.abhow.com.
This article appeared in the July 2010 issue of ABHOW Words.