______________________________________________________________________________________ Meridian Senior Living
For Kacy, one of the industry’ s biggest blind spots is how operators view the people they serve.“ I recently attended a healthcare event where the speaker described assisted living residents as shaped by the hardships of the Great Depression, saying that experience influenced how our current residents see the world. He basically argued that residents primarily want basic quality. But that didn’ t add up for me. Our median resident age is 88. Most of our residents were born around 1938, right at the end of the Great Depression. By the time they turned 20, they had seen postwar growth and industrialization. They grew up in a service economy that eventually became an experience economy. So, our residents expect much more than many people realize.”
Understanding expectations isn’ t just a marketing task for Kacy. It drives operational decisions throughout the organization. He believes the future belongs to operators who keep raising the bar instead of just maintaining it.
People first growth
Kacy’ s career began while he was finishing his master’ s degree at Columbia University. During an internship at the Jewish Home and Hospital, he discovered his passion for senior care. Before he graduated, Beverly Enterprises recruited him into its Administrator-in- Training program, launching a career that would take him through many areas of healthcare, including a role as president of Amedisys Hospice.
Those years shaped his views on leadership and growth. Meridian started 15 years ago as a small company and grew into a national operator. At one point, Meridian managed more than 140 communities. Still, Kacy doesn’ t see growth as the end goal.
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