Paula Rathgaber Gomez

VP Sales and Marketing
Sequoia Living
San Francisco, CA, US
  • 135-B. Build Your Workforce by Improving the Employee Experience

    • Sunday, October 25, 2026

    2:45 – 3:45 p.m.

    135-B. Build Your Workforce by Improving the Employee Experience

    Senior living organizations are navigating a workforce environment marked by staffing shortages, rapid onboarding, rising recruitment costs, and shifting expectations among new and seasoned team members. This session will explore how thoughtful experience design and strategic technology use can reshape the employee experience and foster lasting commitment. Presenters will share workforce-strengthening strategies that adapt customer-experience methods to the aging services workplace. They’ll outline the advantages of treating employees as “internal customers” by offering internships, mentoring programs, community-building initiatives, data-driven coaching tools, and streamlined career pathways. You’ll learn practical steps to reduce turnover and make workforce investments more predictable and measurable, even with resource constraints.

Daniel Reingold

Board Vice Chair
RiverSpring Living
Riverdale, NY, USA
  • 35-L. Thriving Amid the Turbulence by Managing Change

    • Wednesday, October 28, 2026

    11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

    35-L. Thriving Amid the Turbulence by Managing Change

    The aging services sector is facing upheaval that will inevitably affect the services we offer, the settings where we provide care, and the structure of our organizations. In response, we must be willing to abandon old approaches and rely on creativity, perseverance, and stakeholder engagement to chart a new course. During this lively, interactive discussion, two senior living leaders will introduce you to change management models and offer guidance on applying them in various situations. You’ll hear about organizations that couldn’t let go of the past and those that have made significant changes with meaningful results. Discover how to thrive amid the turbulence by understanding the changes and opportunities ahead and learning to manage them at a rapid pace.

Julian Reisenthel

Homecare Director
  • 51-I. Surviving the HCBS Squeeze: Sustainability Solutions

    • Tuesday, October 27, 2026

    4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

    51-I. Surviving the HCBS Squeeze: Sustainability Solutions

    Sixty percent of home and community-based service (HCBS) providers have faced negative margins or program closures over the past three years because of stagnant reimbursement rates and rising costs. This session will offer several solutions to help your HCBS program survive the squeeze. Presenters will share how their agency navigated severe reimbursement challenges, made tough program decisions, and used innovative practices to restore its financial health. Discover how they implemented geographic clustering of clients to improve staffing efficiency and leveraged a remote global administrative workforce to reduce overhead. You’ll gain strategies to right-size your agency, maximize your bottom line, and better support clients and communities amid funding challenges.

David Richart

Executive Director
Full Life Care
Seattle, WA, US
  • 51-I. Surviving the HCBS Squeeze: Sustainability Solutions

    • Tuesday, October 27, 2026

    4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

    51-I. Surviving the HCBS Squeeze: Sustainability Solutions

    Sixty percent of home and community-based service (HCBS) providers have faced negative margins or program closures over the past three years because of stagnant reimbursement rates and rising costs. This session will offer several solutions to help your HCBS program survive the squeeze. Presenters will share how their agency navigated severe reimbursement challenges, made tough program decisions, and used innovative practices to restore its financial health. Discover how they implemented geographic clustering of clients to improve staffing efficiency and leveraged a remote global administrative workforce to reduce overhead. You’ll gain strategies to right-size your agency, maximize your bottom line, and better support clients and communities amid funding challenges.

Eric Riguerra, RN

Director of Nursing Services
Jewish Home at Rockleigh
Rockleigh, NJ, USA
  • 113-E. Improving Dementia Care with AI-Powered Pain Assessment

    • Monday, October 26, 2026

    3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

    113-E. Improving Dementia Care with AI-Powered Pain Assessment

    Pain is often underrecognized and undertreated in older adults with dementia, many of whom cannot reliably self-report their discomfort. This communication barrier leads caregivers to rely on subjective observations, resulting in inconsistent assessments and missed opportunities for intervention. This session will explore how AI-powered pain assessment tools combine automated facial recognition with structured digital checklists to accurately and consistently identify pain-related behaviors in nonverbal individuals. Presenters will demonstrate how to use these tools to improve clinical decision-making and reduce falls, frailty, and inappropriate drug use. Join this session to discover how technology and human care can work together to ensure a pain-free future for older adults.

Keith Robinette

Career Coach
Givens Communities
Asheville, NC, US
  • 145-K. Growing From Within: The Power of Career Coaching

    • Wednesday, October 28, 2026

    10:00 – 11:00 a.m.

    145-K. Growing From Within: The Power of Career Coaching

    When team members see a future for themselves at your organization, they will stay, grow, and thrive. This session will show you how in-house career coaching makes that possible by establishing clear career pathways, building trust-based coaching relationships, and supporting skill development. Presenters will outline a scalable career-coaching model used by a life plan community to foster workforce engagement, increase retention, and improve organizational culture. You’ll gain tools to build your own coaching program, including strategies for identifying champions, defining success metrics, and embedding coaching into everyday workflows. Don’t miss this opportunity to create a future where every team member thrives.

Sanford Rodgers

Director of On Lok PACEpartners
On Lok PACEpartners
San Francisco, CA, United States
  • 46-F. Bringing PACE to Affordable Housing: Benefits and Approaches

    • Monday, October 26, 2026

    4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

    46-F. Bringing PACE to Affordable Housing: Benefits and Approaches

    Are you struggling to meet the complex medical and social needs of residents in your standalone affordable housing community? The Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) may offer a solution. PACE enables older adults to age safely in the community by providing comprehensive medical care, social services, and care coordination. During this session, you’ll hear from On Lok, which founded the PACE model, and from On Lok PACEpartners, which guides housing providers interested in launching and scaling their own PACE programs. Presenters will explain the PACE approach and its benefits for housing residents. They’ll also outline strategies for co-locating PACE with housing and share a framework to help you begin your PACE exploration.

Kathleen Rogers

CFO
Village On The Isle
Venice, FL, USA
  • 38-B. Capital-Efficient Pathways to Meet Needs and Advance Mission

    • Sunday, October 25, 2026

    2:45 – 3:45 p.m.

    38-B. Capital-Efficient Pathways to Meet Needs and Advance Mission

    Nonprofit providers of aging services must scale their organizations to serve an older population that continues to grow each year. But how can growth be achieved when land options are limited, and expansion appears cost-prohibitive? This session will showcase a group of single-site and multisite organizations exploring capital-efficient pathways to meet local needs and advance their missions. Presenters will provide an inside look at how these organizations developed new campuses, implemented phased expansions, engaged in adaptive reuse of existing buildings, and established satellite communities. Learn how successful organizations use disciplined planning and evaluation to identify opportunities and mitigate risk. Get the guidance you need to achieve sustainable growth and capital-efficient expansion in constrained markets.

Rachel Rogers

Director of Continuing Education and Workforce Development
Wor-Wic Community College
Salisbury, MD, US
  • 78-D. Foster Aging in Community by REACHing Out to Residents

    • Monday, October 26, 2026

    8:30 – 9:30 a.m.

    78-D. Foster Aging in Community by REACHing Out to Residents

    How can affordable housing providers help older residents age well in the community? This session will introduce the Residents Engaging in Authentic Conversations on Health (REACH) interview tool, which helps staff in affordable housing communities collect residents’ health and wellness information and use it to connect residents to appropriate services. Eaton Senior Communities in Lakewood, CO, developed the tool with researchers at the University of Denver and is now analyzing and sharing 10 years of resident wellness data with housing providers, healthcare programs, and payers. This session will examine the project’s implementation, early results, and best practices for promoting healthy, affordable aging.

Alexandria Rohrbaugh

Director of Marketing and Communications
The Ohio Masonic Home
Springfield, OH, US
  • 73-L. Putting Marketing at the Forefront of Everything You Do

    • Wednesday, October 28, 2026

    11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

    73-L. Putting Marketing at the Forefront of Everything You Do

    The marketing function at senior living communities isn’t just for the sales team. Communities seeking a competitive edge must put marketing at the forefront of everything they do, including employee recruitment, resident events, and fundraising. This session will focus on how a multisite senior living organization created an internal marketing agency that operates independently while supporting the organization’s sales function. Presenters will explain how the agency built its capacity to support every internal function and how its four-person team uses artificial intelligence to handle tedious tasks, freeing team members to focus on advancing the organization’s mission. You’ll leave this session with a roadmap to expand marketing support across your organization and leverage technology to boost your efforts.

Shewon Roper

Executive Vice President & COO
Cooperative Home Care Associates
Bronx, NY
  • 146-L. How a Universal Worker Model Boosts Satisfaction and Retention

    • Wednesday, October 28, 2026

    11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

    146-L. How a Universal Worker Model Boosts Satisfaction and Retention

    Direct care professionals face persistent challenges, including high turnover, low wages, and limited opportunities for career advancement. This session will showcase a promising solution: the Universal Direct Care Workforce Initiative. This career advancement model features immersive training for new hires, specialty training in dementia and behavioral health, and a “Care Integration Senior Aide” who documents and reports clients’ clinical conditions to the care team. A representative from PHI, a national workforce organization, will share data from the initiative’s first year, and a home care partner will describe evidence-based practices implemented through the program. You’ll learn how this model improves the quality of care and boosts workforce satisfaction and retention.

Jeffrey Rose

Director of Special Initiaitves
AARP – Older Adults Technology Services (OATS)
Brooklyn, NY, United States
  • 7-G. Building Digital Confidence among Older Adults

    • Tuesday, October 27, 2026

    8:30 – 9:30 a.m.

    7-G. Building Digital Confidence among Older Adults

    Many senior living organizations are adept at implementing new technology solutions and devices to improve older adults’ daily lives. Yet these organizations often overlook an important truth: the success of any new technology depends not on a high-tech device but on the user’s confidence and ability to use it. That’s where digital literacy comes in. This session will show you how to foster curiosity rather than hesitation among older adults, enabling them to learn the digital skills needed for meaningful engagement with technology. Presenters will provide strategies to help you design digital literacy programs that empower older adults and ensure they are not left behind in the digital age.