Send your personnel news to Lois Bowers at [email protected].

headshot of Steve Landers, MD, MPH
Steve Landers, MD, MPH

Hebrew SeniorLife taps Steve Landers, MD, MPH, as next president and CEO

Steve Landers MD, MPH, has been appointed as the new president and CEO of Hebrew SeniorLife, a senior living and care provider that is a Harvard Medical School affiliate. He will join Hebrew SeniorLife in July, succeeding Louis J. Woolf, who is retiring after leading the organization for the past 14 years.

Landers comes to Hebrew SeniorLife from the Visiting Nurse Association Health Group, where since 2012 he was president and CEO. He is a practicing physician, certified in family medicine, geriatric medicine and hospice and palliative medicine, and he also holds an appointment as a clinical associate professor of family medicine and community health at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. 

Landers is a graduate of Indiana University at Bloomington, the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He completed a family medicine residency at University Hospitals of Cleveland / CWRU and completed a geriatric medicine fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic.

Julie Simpkins headshot
Julie Simpkins
Greg Echols headshot
Greg Echols

Gardant names Julie Simpkins and Greg Echols co-presidents

Julie Simpkins and Greg Echols have been named co-presidents of Gardant Management Solutions, the company has announced. The move comes as Rod Burkett transitions from CEO to board chairman, turning over the reins of day-to-day management.

Simpkins has almost 30 years of experience in market rate and affordable senior housing. She has been chief operating officer at Gardant since 2016 and before that was the company’s senior vice president of strategy and business development.

Simpkins was appointed to the National Center for Assisted Living Board of Directors and serves on the finance and policy committee and the NCAL state leader chair. She also serves on the Indiana Center for Assisted Living Advisory Council and its Medicaid waiver sub-committee. She also is on the Indiana Health Care Association / INCAL Board of Directors.

Echols, formerly Gardant’s chief financial officer, brings to his new role more than 30 years of experience in accounting, financial management and real estate development in the senior housing and care sector. He oversees Gardant’s Captive program, an insurance company owned and operated to protect the company and its affiliates from risk and loss.

Heather Haley headshot
Heather Haley
Tina Schachter headshot
Tina Schachter

Integral Senior Living names 2 VPs

Heather Haley has been promoted to vice president of sales and marketing at Integral Senior Living, and Tina Schachter has been promoted to vice president of sales training and executive search.

Haley brings to her new position a decade of experience in healthcare marketing and sales. She now oversees the marketing goals and strategies of communities in Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. Haley started her career by spending five years as the publisher and editor of the Senior Directory East Tennessee.

In her new role, Schachter plays a role in ISL’s continued success at the sales and marketing level, as well as its ability to foster exceptional leadership.

Claiborne names Toni Groselle regional director of sales 

Toni Groselle has been named regional director of sales at Claiborne Senior Living.

Groselle will directly support the community teams in an effort to drive continued growth by ensuring that sales and occupancy goals are met for the communities within Mississippi and Louisiana. 

Groselle brings to the role almost two decades of experience in senior living sales, including 13 years of multi-site regional sales experience. 

John Mastacciuola headshot
John Mastacciuola

Gurwin names John Mastacciuola executive director of Fountaingate Gardens

John Mastacciuola has been named executive director of Fountaingate Gardens, Commack, NY. 

Before joining Fountaingate Gardens, Mastacciuola was regional director of operations at Unidine, part of the Compass Group, where he oversaw dining and hospitality services for Gurwin’s assisted living and independent living communities as well as its nursing and rehabilitation center.

A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, he brings to his new role more than 25 years of experience in the hospitality sector.

Belmont Village names Jorge Noriega executive director of Coral Gables, FL, community

Jorge Noriega has been hired as executive director of Belmont Village Coral Gables, a Belmont Village Senior Living independent living, assisted living and memory care community opening in October in Coral Gables, FL. 

Noriega joined Belmont Village in 2016 and has overseen various initiatives for the development, administrative and investment side of Belmont Village Santa Fe, the company’s first international community, located in Mexico City. In 2020, he was appointed executive director of Belmont Village Santa Fe and later served in an administrative role at Belmont Village La Jolla. 

Noriega earned his undergraduate degree in hospitality administration from Boston University and an MBA from the Ross School of Business.

Kim Leek headshot
Kim Leek

Kendal at Oberlin promotes Kim Leek to director of nursing

Kim Leek has been promoted to the position of director of nursing for the Stephens Care Center at Kendal at Oberlin, the Kendal Corp. affiliate in Oberlin, OH. The center includes assisted living, memory support, skilled nursing and rehabilitation.

Leek has been a nurse in the aging services field for more than 23 years. and joined Kendal at Oberlin in 2014. She began her career with Kendal as an RN clinical educator.

Leek obtained her master’s degree in nursing in 2019 and earned certification as an infection preventionist in 2020. She served the entire Kendal at Oberlin life plan / continuing care retirement community in this role through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leek was named assistant director of nursing for the Stephens Care Center in 2021. Most recently, she had been serving as interim director of nursing.

headshot of Dr. Nalinbhai Patel
Nalinbhai Patel, MD
headshot of Dr. Santokh Walha
Santokh Walha, MD
headshot of Dr. Michael Wilkins
Michael Wilkins, DPM

Cypress organizations adds 3 physicians

Cypress Cove has welcomed three new physicians to campus to make available in-person care to residents.

Nalinbhai Patel, MD, will provide in-person primary and urgent care to residents and serve as leadership for both Cypress Cove and Cypress at Home, Santokh Walha, MD, will extend in-person primary and urgent care, and Michael Wilkins, DPM, will render podiatry services.

Patel serves as medical director of Cypress at Home and oversees the medical care clinic on the Cypress Cove campus. He also is medical director of Cypress Cove’s assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing. He is a board-certified internal medicine physician with clinical interests in diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and geriatrics. He received his medical degree and completed his residency at Hahnemann University in Philadelphia.

Walha provides in-person patient care on select days and fills in when Patel is away. He received his medical degree at Dayanand Medical College in India and completed his residency in neurology at University of Arkansas. He has experience in skilled nursing, acute care, urgent care and family practice and has been in private practice in Fort Myers, FL, since 1998.

Wilkins sees Cypress Cove residents in the medical care clinic as well as the assisted living and skilled nursing healthcare neighborhoods. He received his podiatric medicine degree from the Barry University School of Podiatric Medicine in Miami Shores, FL, and completed his residency at Westside Regional Medical Center in Plantation, FL.

Colleen Everett headshot
Colleen Everett

Bridges by Epoch at Nashua names senior adviser

Colleen Everett has been named senior adviser at Bridges by Epoch at Nashua, a memory care assisted living community in Nashua, NH.

Everett has more than 15 years of senior living experience and has worked with senior living communities across the country. Most recently, she was a regional specialist for a group of communities in Los Angeles. She also previously worked at Epoch Senior Living as senior adviser specialist for Bridges by Epoch’s Pembroke, Hingham and Mashpee locations in Massachusetts.

Everett will be responsible for building relationships with older adults and their families while sharing education, support and resources for the community. She also will oversee connecting with area professionals and local organizations to share the benefits that the Bridges by Epoch at Nashua lifestyle brings.

Everett holds a bachelor’s degree in art history from Sarah Lawrence College and a graduate degree in theology and ministry to the elderly from Andover Newton Theological School. 

Green Street appoints Dan ‘Fig’ Figenshu to CFO

Dan “Fig” Figenshu has been named chief financial officer at commercial real estate intelligence and analytics firm Green Street.

Figenshu formerly was the chief operating officer/chief financial officer at Rocketrip. He also was senior vice president of finance at Mic Network. Earlier in his career, Figenshu held various finance and operational roles at global media companies, including Random House and Simon & Schuster. 

Figenshu received his Bachelor of Science degree in finance from the Wallace E. Carroll School of Management at Boston College.

HJ Sims welcomes Jenny Wade as SVP, investment banking

Jenny Wade has joined privately held investment bank and wealth management firm HJ Sims as senior vice president in the Bloomington, MN, office.

She has more than 21 years of municipal and nonprofit finance experience. Before joining Sims, Wade was a part of the senior living team at Piper Sandler for 16 years, where she focused on the management and execution of financings from engagement to closing for independent living, assisted living and memory care communities, as well as skilled nursing facilities, primarily for nonprofit clients. She also worked for Public Financial Management, a national financial advisory firm to local and state governments.

Wade is active with LeadingAge and the Minnesota Institute of Public Finance, and she serves on the board of directors for Women in Public Finance–Minnesota Chapter and the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management Alumni Board. She also volunteers with Girls on the Run Minnesota, a youth development program for girls in third through eighth grade that teaches life skills through interactive lessons while incorporating running.

Wade earned her MBA, with an emphasis in finance, from the U of M and her bachelor’s degree in business management and French from Luther College in Decorah, IA. She holds Series 7 and Series 50 licenses.

Healthpeak Properties appoints Kathy Sandstrom as board chair

Kathy Sandstrom has been appointed an independent chair of the board of directors of Denver-based  real estate investment trust Healthpeak Properties

Sandstrom has more than 20 years of real estate finance and investment experience. She served as senior managing director and global head of Heitman’s public real estate securities business from 2013 to 2018 and was a member of the firm’s Global Management Committee, Board of Managers and the Allocation Committee. Since joining Heitman in 1996, Sandstrom held several senior leadership positions in multiple roles in the institutional real estate investment industry.

She has served on Healthpeak’s board since 2018 and has been vice chair since 2022. She also is a member of the boards of directors of EastGroup Properties and Urban Edge Properties, both New York Stock Exchange-listed REITs.

Nancy Swanger headshot
Nancy Swanger

Vision Centre appoints Nancy Swanger to board of trustees

Nancy Swanger has been appointed to the board of trustees of the Vision Centre, which aims to create 25 university and college programs to prepare future generations of leaders for aging-adult service organizations. From those programs, it also aims to facilitate 1,000 paid internships in the field by 2025.

Swanger is the founding director of the Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living, which is housed in the School of Hospitality Business Management at Washington State University, Pullman, WA, where she also is the associate dean for Inter-College Partnerships in the Carson College of Business. As part of the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing, she was named to the Healthy Ageing 50, one of four from the United States.

Swanger pursued higher education at the University of Idaho, where she received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business education as well as a doctorate in adult education.

The Vision Centre is supported by individual senior living providers as well as the NAB Foundation, the American College of Health Care Administrators, the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living, Argentum, LeadingAge, the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care, the American Seniors Housing Association, and the National Association for Home Care & Hospice.

Lori Porter headshot
Lori Porter

State of Ohio appoints NAHCA CEO Lori Porter to nursing home task force

National Association of Health Care Assistants CEO and co-founder Lori Porter has been appointed to the newly created Ohio Governor’s Nursing Home Quality and Accountability Task Force. She will work with other experts in aging, long-term care and other disciplines toward a goal of making excellence the expectation for all of Ohio’s nursing homes.

Porter, a 2023 inductee into the McKnight’s Women of Distinction Hall of Honor, brings more than 40 years of experience to her new role. She previously was a certified nursing assistant for seven years and a nursing home administrator for seven. She has served as NAHCA CEO since 1995.

Send your personnel news to Lois Bowers at [email protected]. High-quality color headshots are welcome but not required.