Ashley Wade

Director Of Development Planning
Life Care Services LLC
Purchase, NY
  • 123-C. Imagining New Environments to Live, Work, and Play

    • Sunday, October 25, 2026

    4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

    123-C. Imagining New Environments to Live, Work, and Play

    Today’s older adults are living longer, staying healthier longer, and working longer. This shift is reshaping attitudes toward retirement and creating unprecedented opportunities for retirement communities to reinvent themselves. This session will examine how senior living organizations can support the evolving lifestyles of older adults by expanding services beyond community walls and designing surrounding neighborhoods to meet residents’ needs. Presenters will invite you to imagine how neighborhoods and residential communities might intersect, envision the possibilities for intergenerational or multigenerational environments within and around retirement communities, and consider how mixed-use settings might offer better living environments for today’s older adults. Explore the future of aging and be prepared to rethink your view of traditional retirement communities.

Jennifer Wade

Vice President of Real Estate, Senior Housing Partners
Presbyterian Homes & Services
Roseville, MN
  • 49-H. Beyond the Continuum: Serving a Broader Spectrum of Older Adults

    • Tuesday, October 27, 2026

    3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

    49-H. Beyond the Continuum: Serving a Broader Spectrum of Older Adults

    Leading nonprofit senior housing providers are expanding their missions to serve a broader spectrum of older adults with diverse lifestyles and affordability needs. During this session, you’ll meet representatives from one organization that built an active adult development one mile from its existing full-continuum campus, and from another that integrated low- to middle-income housing into its broader development strategy. You’ll take away tips for designing and financing a range of projects that fall outside the traditional continuum while complementing existing campus offerings. Here’s your chance to reflect on your growth and consider new projects that could strengthen your market position and advance your mission.

Craig Wagoner

Vice President of Operations
National Lutheran Communities & Services
Frederick, MD
  • 128-H. Brighten Up Your Community: Reimagining Outdated Spaces

    • Tuesday, October 27, 2026

    3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

    128-H. Brighten Up Your Community: Reimagining Outdated Spaces

    Does your senior living community have dark interiors, underutilized spaces, and outdated dining areas? It may be time to reimagine your community to make it more appealing to consumers seeking modern design, diverse dining options, and vibrant spaces that foster social engagement. This session will show you how to keep pace with new developments by evaluating your campus space, identifying underused areas, and repurposing them to align with emerging trends and resident expectations. Presenters will share tips for taking a phased renovation approach that lets you exercise your imagination, maximize existing assets, and avoid significant debt. They’ll also offer tools to engage residents in the design process and turn them into project champions.

Janel Wait

Co-CEO
AgePop
  • 32-I. Build a Team That Outperforms Expectations

    • Tuesday, October 27, 2026

    4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

    32-I. Build a Team That Outperforms Expectations

    Extraordinary outcomes depend on extraordinary teams, whether you’re leading an expansion, repositioning an existing campus, stabilizing occupancy, or launching a major operational initiative. This session tells the story of a life plan community that built a cross-functional team to deliver a successful expansion that many believed would not resonate with its intended audience. Presenters will describe how they improved performance across operations, culture, sales, brand, design, and development through strategic decisions, bold pivots, and mindset shifts that propelled a small nonprofit community to outsized success. You’ll walk away with a replicable framework for building team chemistry and enhancing execution, along with practical tips for shifting culture and inspiring optimism.

Abby Waldo

VP of Innovation and Project Implementation
Resthaven
Holland, MI
  • 110-B. Data-Driven Methods to Extend Independence and Healthspan

    • Sunday, October 25, 2026

    2:45 – 3:45 p.m.

    110-B. Data-Driven Methods to Extend Independence and Healthspan

    Many life plan communities implement robust wellness programs to help residents live independently longer and extend their healthspan. Yet these communities often overlook less visible but equally influential factors that affect residents’ long-term independence. This session will showcase a life plan community that uses data-driven, behaviorally informed methods to assess residents’ strengths and vulnerabilities, help residents interpret their assessment results, educate them about issues affecting independence, and enable them to co-design targeted interventions. Learn how to make data-informed programming decisions that meet residents’ needs, support independence, and align with organizational strategies to help residents live independently longer.

Mike Wallace

CEO and Partner
Tandem Senior Living Advisors
Gastonia, NC
  • 70-I. Capturing Imaginations with Visual Storytelling

    • Tuesday, October 27, 2026

    4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

    70-I. Capturing Imaginations with Visual Storytelling

    Is a picture really worth a thousand words? Many senior living organizations are counting on it. This session will feature an organization that used visual storytelling to attract a new market segment to its senior housing options and to build support for a campus expansion among current residents. Presenters will explain what visual storytelling entails, how it drives effective marketing, and how to assess the appropriate use of AI-generated imagery, architectural renderings, and video flythroughs. You’ll gain practical guidance on effective visual storytelling methods and a candid assessment of approaches that fall short.

Shay Wallace

Senior Director of Sales and Marketing
Pacific Retirement Services
Medford, OR
  • 61-B. Let Current Residents Help You Identify Future Residents

    • Sunday, October 25, 2026

    2:45 – 3:45 p.m.

    61-B. Let Current Residents Help You Identify Future Residents

    Life plan communities seeking new feeder markets beyond their local area need look no further than their own residents to identify ideal prospects. In this session, a panel of marketing experts will explain how a multisite senior living organization partnered with a marketing agency to improve outreach to local consumers and reach qualified prospects beyond its immediate area. Presenters will describe how the organization’s marketing team used information about current residents including their affiliations and personal passions to conduct targeted outreach to prospective residents with similar interests. You’ll learn how to boost lead quality by crafting innovative strategies to reach prospects seeking a new home where they genuinely belong.

Jodi Waterhouse

Director, Strategic Partnerships & Programs
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO
  • 22-J. Innovating Together: Working with Academic Health Partners

    • Wednesday, October 28, 2026

    8:30 – 9:30 a.m.

    22-J. Innovating Together: Working with Academic Health Partners

    Partnering with academic health institutions can help your senior living organization unlock resources, foster innovation, and improve older adults’ quality of life. During this session, representatives from a university and a life plan community will describe their collaboration and explain how it created opportunities for both partners. Presenters will outline how the community gained access to cutting-edge medical research and health screenings, while university researchers collaborated with community team members and residents to co-create solutions to pressing challenges. You’ll learn how to identify and approach potential partners, bridge cultural gaps, navigate challenges, and sustain momentum. Get ready to connect aging and academia to deliver measurable benefits to all stakeholders.

Carolyn Weaver

Interior Designer
SFCS Architects
Roanoke, VA
  • 121-A. Tiny Home, Massive Lifestyle: Selling Studio Apartments

    • Sunday, October 25, 2026

    1:00 – 2:00 p.m.

    121-A. Tiny Home, Massive Lifestyle: Selling Studio Apartments

    Does your life plan community have small studio apartments that it’s struggling to fill because they can’t be expanded or combined with larger units? This session may offer some solutions. A chief marketing officer, an interior designer, and a senior living advisor will share how they successfully marketed and quickly filled five studio apartments that had been sitting empty or used for storage. They did so by tapping into the current interest in stylish, functional tiny-home residences and giving the units a facelift with updated designs and size-appropriate furnishings. You’ll see before-and-after photos showing how the community redesigned and marketed the studio apartments as part of its successful “Tiny Home, Massive Lifestyle” campaign.

Sandy Webster

VP Culinary, Nutrition & Hospitality
International Council on Active Aging
Vancouver, BC
  • 118-J. Turn Your Dining Venue into a Wellness Engine

    • Wednesday, October 28, 2026

    8:30 – 9:30 a.m.

    118-J. Turn Your Dining Venue into a Wellness Engine

    When Baby Boomers and members of Gen X arrive at your community’s dining venue, they’ll likely bring new expectations to the table. How will you measure up? This session will report on consumer preferences for culinary programs that deliver flavor, cultural relevance, agency, and a sense of community connection. Presenters will help you meet those preferences with a new culinary framework pioneered by the International Council on Active Aging’s Culinary, Nutrition & Hospitality Network. You’ll learn to reframe senior living dining venues as strategic wellness engines that support physical health, cognitive vitality, and social connection. Get the support you need to rethink how food environments can foster purpose, engagement, and wellness for today’s older adults.

Tim Webster

CEO
Kintura
Greensboro, NC
  • 45-F. Affiliate or Go It Alone? Forming Bonds Across Faith Traditions

    • Monday, October 26, 2026

    4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

    45-F. Affiliate or Go It Alone? Forming Bonds Across Faith Traditions

    The decision to affiliate is among the most consequential and strategic choices a board of directors can make. For faith-based organizations considering a merger with a ministry from a different faith background, the decision can be especially daunting. This session will feature three leaders from faith-based organizations that successfully affiliated with partners from different religious backgrounds. Presenters will describe their founding traditions and the key drivers behind their decision to pursue affiliation. They’ll explain how they approached the affiliation process and how they weighed religious affinities and differences when identifying and evaluating potential partners. You’ll leave this session better equipped to engage in conversations about strategic partnerships while maintaining your unique faith identity.

Jesse Wescott

Associate Vice President
The Towers at Tower Lane
New Haven, CT
  • 130-J. Design with Data: Reducing Loneliness in Senior Housing

    • Wednesday, October 28, 2026

    8:30 – 9:30 a.m.

    130-J. Design with Data: Reducing Loneliness in Senior Housing

    Social architecture deliberately designs environments to shape human behavior and foster meaningful connections. This session will show how a senior housing development used this approach to design a 30,000-square-foot ground-floor renovation. Presenters will explain how they tracked residents’ engagement and support needs using a customized, artificial intelligence-enabled platform, then applied proxemics the study of how humans use physical space and distance to communicate to determine hallway widths, select furniture, and set seating capacity. You’ll learn the science behind the community’s planning process and consider how isolation measurement tools might help you design spaces that encourage connection.