FROM THE EXECUTIVE DESK
Pegasus CEO Hollister Sees Shift to Wellness as Key to Future
By Patrick Connole C
hris Hollister is a veteran of the senior living profession before the business was even called senior
living, having worked since the mid-1980s in the fledgling trade. Since then, he has maintained leadership roles here in the United States and overseas. Wherever he has worked, Hollister has left a lasting mark. He started as a financial and market fea-
sibility analyst for Greystone Communities in 1986. After 3 1/2 years, he left to help start The Standish Care Company in Boston, where he led the first initial public offering of a free-standing assisted living company in 1991. In 1995, Hollister co-founded South- ern Assisted Living Inc, or “SALI,” in Chap- el Hill, N.C. SALI was a pioneer in develop- ing an attractive middle-market platform in towns and cities across the Carolinas. They were among the first companies to include dedicated memory care wings as a proactive strategy working with the Alzheimer’s Asso- ciation of North Carolina. After selling the company in 2006 to
Brookdale, he moved to New Zealand for five years where he served as chair of Vision Senior Living in Auckland. After moving back to the United States in 2012, Hollister served on the board of Sunrise Senior Liv- ing from 2013 to 2018. In 2018, Steven Vick asked Hollister to co-found Pegasus Senior Living with him. Today, he is the chair and chief executive officer of Pegasus. Below is a question-and-answer session
that will detail more of Hollister’s track re- cord, thoughts on the industry’s future, and what the future means to him. Senior Living Executive (SLE): What are
your responsibilities at Pegasus Senior Living? Chris Hollister (CH): I am responsible for setting the strategy and tactics to achieve
quality care and financial results. We have assembled a strong team of seasoned senior living executives all passionate about creat- ing a positive culture to deliver great out- comes for our residents and capital partners.
SLE: Over the course of your career, what has been the most significant change in the senior living business, and how has this affected what you do now? CH: First of all, I would say the assisted living/memory care model has gone from a tiny part of senior living to the dominant model of private pay senior care in the United States. The growth of the sector has been nothing short of amazing and we owe a lot to the early pioneers and the fine work of NIC, ASHA, and Argentum. Beyond that, I would note two other driving factors — first, the continual shift to serving more frail residents both upon entry into our communities and as their care needs change and advance. In the early 1990s, many state regulators would not allow you to keep residents in assisted living if they could not self-ambulate out of the building or had other complex health needs. It was a battle in many states to allow hospice in assisted living. With the challenges and lack of funding in the nursing home sector we see families and residents demanding to stay
with us longer and most state regs now allow this. This makes assisted liv- ing a much more complex and clini- cal business that it was 30 years ago.
SLE: What is the second factor? CH: The second factor is technol- ogy — being able to deploy high tech yet affordable solutions to better determine and measure and monitor care needs is an ab- solute necessity. The COVID-19 pandemic and the labor challenges left in its wake has made the need for operational efficiency even more pronounced. We owe it to our residents and families to be as efficient as possible since many are now selling assets or dipping into reserve or estate funds to pay for our services.
Chris Hollister Co-Founder, CEO and Chair Pegasus Senior Living
SLE: Resident safety…what is first and foremost in your mind when you think of this area? CH: The entire U.S. health care system needs to make a paradigm shift from ‘fixing broken stuff” to wellness. Hundreds of bil- lions of dollars per year could likely be saved
“We owe it to our residents and families to be as efficient as possible since many are now selling assets or dipping into reserve or estate funds to pay for our services.”
MAY/JUNE 2023
ARGENTUM.ORG 51
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
