Sunrise Senior Living announces departure of CEO Chris Winkle
Chris Winkle is leaving Sunrise Senior Living after serving as CEO for the past six years, the company announced Friday. The McLean, VA-based senior living operator’s board of managers has hired Ferguson Partners to search for Winkle’s replacement, and Winkle will assist the board during the transition.
“I appreciate Chris’ many contributions at Sunrise, and especially for his leadership throughout these last several months during this most trying time of the pandemic,” Jeff Lozon, chairman of the board, said in a statement. “During his tenure as CEO, he has been instrumental in reinvigorating our growth strategy, and helped shape Sunrise as a leader of the senior living industry.”
Winkle joined Sunrise as chief operating officer in 2013 and was named CEO in 2014. Under his leadership, Sunrise restarted its development pipeline, completed several large acquisitions, introduced technology to enhance resident care delivery and invested in ancillary organizations as additional revenue growth streams.
Before joining Sunrise, Winkle was CEO of MedQuest, an operator of independent, fixed-site, outpatient diagnostic imaging centers in the United States, for eight years. Prior to that, he was president and CEO for Mariner Health Care, which operated assisted living communities, skilled nursing facilities and long-term acute care hospitals. He also formerly was chief operating officer at Integrated Health Services. Earlier in his career, he held management positions within specialty and rehabilitation hospitals.
Holder of an accounting degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Winkle is secretary of Argentum’s board and a member of the executive board of the American Seniors Housing Association.
Retirement Housing Foundation names Stuart Hartman president, CEO
Stuart Hartman will become president and CEO of Long Beach, CA-based Retirement Housing Foundation, effective March 1. Currently, he is senior vice president of operations, acquisitions and development.
Hartman, who will be the foundation’s fourth leader in its 60-year history, will succeed Laverne Joseph. The foundation is a national provider of affordable housing and services for older adults, families and people with disabilities.
Hartman has almost 40 years of property management, resident services and construction experience and has served in a variety of positions during his career at RHF. He was hired in 1990 by Joseph as regional manager for the foundation’s Southern California communities. As the organization grew, so did Hartman’s responsibilities, with promotions to assistant director of management, director of housing management, vice president of housing and healthcare and senior vice president of operations, with functional oversight of affordable housing, healthcare operations, acquisitions and development.
Hartman holds a California real estate broker license and is the real estate broker for the corporation’s two property management companies. He holds a national assisted housing professional executive designation and a certified manager of maintenance designation from the National Council of Housing Management. He also is the Section 504 fair housing coordinator for RHF.
Prior to joining RHF, Martman held positions with Goldrich & Kest Industries and V.M.S. Realty.
LCS names Chris Bird executive vice president, COO
Chris Bird has been named executive vice president and chief operating officer for Life Care Services. As COO, Bird will provide oversight of Life Care Services, CPS, asset management, procurement and onboarding operations. He also will continue to lead operations, build community occupancy, foster capital partner relationships and develop new business.
Bird has led life plan and rental communities across the country. With his promotion, GeLynna Shaw has been promoted from senior vice president/senior director of rental communities to senior vice president and managing director of rental communities. Shaw will oversee all operational execution across the portfolio of 37 rental communities.
Cypress Living names Tim Ficker operations vice president
Tim Ficker has accepted the role of vice president of operations for Florida-based Cypress Living and its supporting affiliates, Cypress Cove and Cypress at Home.
Ficker was executive director at Cypress Cove from 2009 to 2013. He returned to the 48-acre campus in October 2019 in an interim capacity. With the onset of the pandemic, he agreed to extend his stay and returned to the role of executive director until a permanent replacement was selected.
Ficker brings to his latest role 25 years of experience in executive leadership in senior living, including positions with Erickson Living Communities and Shell Point Retirement Community. In 2013, he founded a consulting and coaching firm, TDF Resources, and has since served with MHS and Trilogy Consulting as managing director. Ficker also was interim executive director at University Village in Tampa, assisting in its re-emergence from bankruptcy.
Ficker earned an undergraduate degree in history and urban studies from Denison University, Granville, OH, and a master’s degree in theology from Fuller Seminary. He is a certified John Maxwell team executive coach and a certified Gallup StrengthsFinder coach.
United Methodist Communities names Linda Hill vice president of philanthropy
Linda Hill has been hired as vice president of philanthropy at United Methodist Communities.
Hill has more than 15 years of philanthropy leadership experience, predominantly in the healthcare sector. She joins UMC after five years as executive director of the Raritan Bay Medical Center Foundation, which is part of Hackensack Meridian Health. She previously spent eight years in various development roles at Penn Medicine and Princeton Medical Center and three years as director of development at the Stuart Country Day School of The Sacred Heart.
Prior to her development career, Hill worked as a clinical pharmacist before launching and leading a medical communications company, WriteChoice, for 15 years.
Hill has a pharmacy doctoral degree from the University of the Sciences, Philadelphia, and an undergraduate degree in pharmacy from Rutgers University in New Jersey.
American Healthcare Investors welcomes Ray Oborn as executive vice president
Ray Oborn has joined Irvine, CA-based commercial real estate investment firm American Healthcare Investors as executive vice president, asset management. He will oversee all senior housing, skilled nursing and hospital properties within American Healthcare Investors’ $4.2 billion portfolio of assets under management.
He comes from Cherrywood Pointe Investment, where he was president, and from Cherrywood’s parent company, United Properties, where he was executive vice president. Oborn also formerly was senior regional vice president of operations for Brookdale Senior Living, responsible for the operations of more than 50 independent living, assisted living and memory care communities in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota.
Oborn also previously served in executive capacities with New Perspective Senior Living and Silverado Senior Living and was senior vice president of operations at Sunrise Senior Living for the western division, where he oversaw more than 70 communities in California, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Washington and Canada. Oborn began his career with ManorCare as a licensed nursing home administrator.
Oborn earned an undergraduate degree in behavioral science and health, and an MBA, from the University of Utah.
Grandbridge adds West Coast senior housing investment sales team
Grandbridge Real Estate Capital of Charlotte, NC, announced the addition of a senior housing investment sales team to further expand and complement the company’s dedicated senior housing and healthcare finance group led by Senior Vice President Richard Thomas in Atlanta.
Based in San Diego, the new team is led by David Rothschild and Mary Christian, both previously with Cushman & Wakefield. These team members focus solely on senior living transactions and have represented sellers of senior living properties across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom since 1986. They will work closely with the senior housing and healthcare finance group and Tampa, FL-based senior housing investments sales group, as well as on- and off-balance-sheet capital partners.
Rothschild earned an undergraduate degree in economics at Lawrence University and an MBA from Arizona State University.
Christian has completed almost $9 billion transactional sales with the team during her career in senior living. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University with a degree in psychology and minor in business administration.
StudioSIX5 announces leadership succession strategy
StudioSIX5, an Austin, TX-based interior design firm specializing in senior housing, has announced a leadership succession strategy.
The transition of ownership from President and Founder Dean Maddalena to a board of firm leaders will take place over 10 years. Maddalena, an architect and interior designer, founded StudioSIX5 in 2003.
To date, 50% of StudioSIX5 shares have been sold to four new owner members, including Principals Karla M. Jackson and John Greenless and Associate Principals Shauna Revo and Claire Richards. Each will be fully vested in five years. During that period, additional owners within the firm will be identified, and the remaining 50% of the shares will be sold in 2025 for a complete transition of leadership by 2030.
