Juniper Communities founder and CEO Lynne Katzmann, Ph.D.; the late founders of Koelsch Communities, Emmett and Alice Koelsch; and ProMatura Group founder Margaret Wylde, Ph.D., will be inducted into the American Seniors Housing Association Senior Living Hall of Fame on Jan. 23 at the association’s 2020 annual meeting in Palm Desert, CA, the organization announced Friday.
They join a total of nine others inducted in 2018 and 2019.
“The Senior Living Hall of Fame recognizes the visionaries who have distinguished themselves through uncommon foresight and ground-breaking innovation,” according to ASHA. “These are industry leaders with an unwavering commitment to community lifestyles that enhance choice, independence, dignity and personalized service.”
Lynne Katzmann, Ph.D.
Katzmann founded Bloomfield, NJ-based Juniper 31 years ago and continues to actively lead the company, which now has 22 properties in three states.
Among its innovative programs, Juniper has addressed the changing nature of assisted living and rising acuity levels by implementing its Connect4Life model, which integrates onsite primary care, pharmacy and lab services with social supports and residential care. In research, the model showed a potential cost savings in hospital inpatient spending of up to $4,500 per Medicare beneficiary.
The Connect4Life care coordination model soon may be finding its way into senior living communities across the country under the terms of a five-year licensing agreement between Juniper and Richmond, VA-based Medicare Advantage plan developer and administrator AllyAlign Health.
Juniper also is leading the formation of a Medicare Advantage institutional special needs plan, or I-SNP, in collaboration with Engelwood, CO-based Christian Living Communities, Columbus, OH-based Ohio Living and AllyAlign Health. Under the Perennial Consortium banner, the group plans to go live with the network in 2021 and to expand via partnerships with additional operator stakeholders.
In 2019, Katzmann was the recipient of the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award that was bestowed as part of the McKnight’s Women of Distinction awards by McKnight’s Senior Living and McKnight’s Long-Term Care News.
Emmett and Alice Koelsch
After 21 years at Reynolds Metals, Emmett Koelsch left the company to pursue a new business: seniors housing and care. The Koelsches started their family business in 1958 when they acquired a nursing home in Kelso, WA, that had 52 beds, all of them empty. They moved themselves and their five children into the basement and got to work, buying or building every nursing home in Cowlitz County over the next 10 years.
In 1971, the couple had an idea: Provide services for those who no longer could live alone but did not require skilled nursing care. They built the Delaware Plaza in Longview, WA, providing meals, housekeeping and medication management for their residents, 10 years before the term assisted living was coined.
The Koelsches built their senior living business over the next 25 years. When they retired, all five of their children followed in their footsteps, starting their own senior housing businesses. These businesses — Olympia, WA-based Koelsch Communities, Vancouver, WA-based Jerry Erwin Associates (JEA Senior Living) and Washington state-based Weatherly Inn — now operate more than 100 communities across 21 states.
Emmett Koelsch passed away in 2012. Alice Koelsch Schultz passed away in 2014.
Margaret Wylde, Ph.D.
Margaret Wylde, Ph.D., founded Oxford, MS-based ProMatura Group, which specializes in 55+ age-qualified research, planning and programming, in 1984. Since that time, she has conducted an extensive body of research aimed at improving the collective understanding of the 55+ market, including studies for ASHA.
Among the numerous studies she has led are “Prospective Independent Living Customers: Key Findings from a Study of Prospects and Hold Outs,” 2013; “Unlocking the Mystery Behind Very Satisfied Customers: Make Them Feel at Home,” 2014; “ICAA/ProMatura Wellness Benchmarks National Report,” 2015; “California’s Assisted Living Communities Provide Quality of Life to Residents and Family Members,” 2016; “Senior Living Technology Report,” 2017; and “People, Place, Programming: Quality of Life in Assisted Living,” 2019.
ASHA also cited Wylde’s “significant” effect on community planning research that defines lifestyles, residences, amenities, services, payment plans and pricing across North America, Europe and Australia.
ProMatura has collected data since 2003 for use by investors and developers of age-qualified, service-enriched housing and has provided these data to the National Investment Center for the Seniors Housing & Care Industry, which uses them to track key market trends quarterly.
Selection Committee and previous inductees
The Senior Living Hall of Fame Selection Committee for the 2019 and 2020 inductees was chaired by Larry Cohen, long-time industry executive and former ASHA chairman. Committee members were Lois Bowers, editor of McKnight’s Senior Living, and additional business media professionals covering the industry, Steve Monroe, Matt Valley and John Yedinak.
2019 inductees into the Senior Living Hall of Fame included real estate investment trust Ventas CEO Debra A. Cafaro, Sunrise Senior Living founder Paul Klaassen and National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care co-founder Tony Mullen (deceased).
Inductees in the hall’s inaugural year, 2018, included the late Granger Cobb, CEO of Emeritus, which was acquired by Brookdale Senior Living in 2014, the late Bill Colson, who in 1971 with his father founded what became Holiday Retirement; Bill Kaplan, who founded Senior Lifestyle in 1985; McKnight’s Senior Living columnist Jim Moore, president of consulting firm Moore Diversified Services; Bill Sheriff, former Brookdale CEO; and Stan Thurston, former president and CEO of Life Care Services.
