Award-Winning Ecumen Communities Recognized at Annual Leadership Meeting

Ecumen leaders and communities with outstanding achievements in 2015 were recognized at an awards presentation ceremony at the company’s annual Leadership Meeting held on May 17, 2016, in Saint Cloud, Minn.

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Ecumen COO Shelley Kendrick Featured in Star Tribune’s Movers & Shakers

Shelley Kendrick, Ecumen Senior Vice President of Operations and Chief Operating Officer, in an interview with the Star Tribune talks about Ecumen’s mission, its initiatives to change aging and how the Affordable Care Act is changing the senior living landscape. 

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What You Need to Know about the White House Conference on Aging

The 2015 White House Conference on Aging is underway today (July 13, 2015). There are many ways to get involved in the discussion, even from afar. Find out What You Need to Know about the White House Conference on Aging from the Alliance for Aging Research.

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Ecumen Promotes Robin Balck and Julie Murray

Ecumen CEO Kathryn Roberts announced the promotions of Robin Balck and Julie Murray to reflect their additional responsibilities in strengthening Ecumen’s focus on growth and innovation.

Balck has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Administration and Chief Strategy Officer, and Murray has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing and Chief Business Development Officer.

Balck’s new title designates her as the senior executive in charge of strategy and reflects her added responsibilities for Strategic Initiatives and Communications, along with her previous responsibilities for Human Resources and Organizational Development.

“Innovation is imperative for Ecumen’s success, and Robin is charged with bringing an expanded vision and a more disciplined approach to development of new products and services,” Roberts said. “Plus she will be in charge of ensuring that we achieve our Strategic Dashboard goals through enterprise-wide collaboration.” 

Murray’s promotion to Senior Vice President reflects her growing portfolio of responsibility, and her title of Chief Business Development Officer recognizes the increased importance new housing developments play in growing Ecumen’s revenue, Roberts said.

“While expanding our traditional market-rate housing, Julie has been instrumental in establishing exciting new business models for growth through creative partnerships, such as Abiitan Mill City in Downtown Minneapolis and Zvago Glen Lake cooperative in Minnetonka,” Roberts said.  “Also, she has substantially expanded regional marketing support to our sites and developed marketing strategies for attracting customers to Ecumen earlier in their senior years.”


Carolyn Perron Promoted To Ecumen's VP of Organizational Development

Carolyn Perron has been promoted to Ecumen’s Vice President of Organizational Development.

Robin Dunbar, Ecumen’s Senior Vice President of Human Resources, recently announced Perron’s promotion in a company-wide memo:

“I am very pleased to announce the promotion of Carolyn Perron to Vice President of Organizational Development. Carolyn’s leadership and contributions have been integral to helping build Ecumen’s brand and culture, helping people to grow within Ecumen and also attracting other talented people committed to our mission of creating home and our vision of Changing Aging.

As Vice President of Organizational Development, Carolyn will provide leadership to support and strengthen employee education, employee development and leadership development. People are essential to who we are and why we have been consistently honored as a “Best Place to Work.” It is essential that we continue to help our talent grow and be a place that attracts the best employees as we continue to evolve. Carolyn’s role is essential to this work. Within these core development areas, she also will forge strategy and tools to support succession planning, talent assessment and performance management.

Carolyn joined the HR team in 2007 as an interim HR Director. In this role she helped develop our workforce planning tool and our applicant job shadow program. Carolyn soon became Ecumen’s first Director of Training and Development, inheriting a blank landscape to develop. In this role, she created Ecumen’s first online training module, which brought leaders together from across our multi-site geography on a monthly basis for education and dialogue.

In leading Ecumen Way training across the company, she has helped employees discover their personal brand and how personal brand interrelates with and helps advance the Ecumen brand. As lead facilitator of Velocity, Ecumen’s Leadership Development Program, she has made The Ecumen Way and our brand promise to “Innovate. Empower. Honor.”-- the cornerstone of our year-long personal development experience and other education and development initiatives. These include the EMAPS performance management program; Lean Training, which has helped us streamline job processes and eliminate wasted time that can be frustrating for an employee; and NEON, our new employee orientation program.

Carolyn’s energetic attitude, her desire to learn and empower others to grow, her fearlessness in taking on pioneering initiatives and her commitment to excellence has helped influence, and is intertwined with, Ecumen’s progress of the last six years.

Congratulations and thank you, Carolyn.”