Where the Heart Is

Nancy Gentry Serves as a
Role Model in the Business of Caring

Nancy Gentry, chief executive officer of HomePlace Inc., has devoted her life and her livelihood to caring for others.

Her passion for caregiving, especially for the elderly, is packaged in a soft voice and gentle manner, but is expressed with no doubt. Acknowledging that caregiving isn’t easy for many people, she observes, “For me, it’s just like falling off a rock — it’s something I do naturally.”

Gentry’s lifelong dreams and hard work have resulted in opening three innovative facilities in the last four years in Skagit and Island counties, the first in 1997, the others soon following. HomePlace Special Care centers of Burlington and Oak Harbor are both residential facilities for elderly patients with dementia. Where The Heart Is, Burlington, is an assisted-living facility.

She also operates a nonprofit, adult day-care program, Skagit Adult Day Center in Burlington, and two Wee Care Early Learning Centers for day-care/early childhood education in Burlington and Mount Vernon. “When I see people and their needs,” she observes about herself, “it’s just automatic for me to want to think about how to meet those needs.”

This diminutive but dynamic woman is one of the leaders in the evolution of dementia care here, which she explains is a “nicer, more wholesome way” of treating society’s elders with dignity and respect. Her life’s passion reveals itself in her energy, innovation and hard work aimed toward her chosen mission. At the same time, Gentry, 52, has arrived at a place in her life where there’s peace, contentment and confidence she’s on the right track.

 

‘Kind of transition’

Her facilities provide what she calls “a kind transition,” a natural, comfortable journey between levels of care. She also believes in “aging in place,” facilities that provide a wide range of services for many needs, resulting in fewer radical moves.

Two early experiences stand out in her mind that raised her awareness and inspired her to someday operate businesses that improve care for the elderly. “About 30 years ago, I was helping an elderly friend who was widowed and had health-care needs,” she recalls.

“But it was hard,” she admits. “There were so few services — that was before we had any assisted-living facilities at all in this area.” Then her now-deceased father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and he lived the last years of his life at the Veteran’s Hospital in Seattle.

“After that, I felt pretty passionate about the discrimination and the treatment of people with dementia,” she declares. “So I began to think about providing an environment that would enhance their quality of life.

“I had all the ideas in my head for a long time, but it also took me a long time to find an architect who would listen to me.” Mark Christ, an architect from Sedro-Woolley, finally came up with the design she wanted. “My philosophy is, ‘design the program on what they (the residents) want, not what my needs are,’” she explains.

All her facilities are composed of several small communities, each with bedrooms built around living, dining and kitchen areas. There are no obvious nurses’ stations or institutional trappings. All the areas are decorated “just like at home,” with pretty wallpaper and comfortable furniture.

“It’s homelike,” she relates with satisfaction, “and therefore the residents are happier and interact more.” Of course, a passion for caregiving is one thing and making it the basis of a successful business is another.

“It’s not for everybody, I can tell you that,” she declares with typical candor. “You have to look at it from a business viewpoint and sometimes that calls for tough decisions.”

Risks acknowledged, however, she admits with a smile that she likes the challenges.

 

Looking for adventure

Gentry grew up in Oregon, where her first business was a paper route at the age of 7. Her father was a builder, and at 18, she accompanied him to Alaska because she “needed an adventure,” and found a job as a dental assistant. The dentist for whom she worked also owned rental property and Gentry learned about property management. It was there she met her husband, Kendall, who was attending college. They were married in Fairbanks and, in 1971, job opportunities attracted them to Burlington. “This became our home,” she recalls. “We liked it here and we never left.” They have two children, Brian, now 26, and Kendra, 23.

Partners in business as well as in life, Kendall and Nancy own Landed Gentry Development, Inc. and HomePlace Inc. together. “We’re shareholders in each other’s businesses,” she explains, “but for the most part we keep operations separate.” Strong believers in family ties, the entire Gentry family works together. Brian has joined Kendall on the development side and Kendra handles marketing and public relations for Nancy’s facilities.

“I enjoy working with my kids,” she says with a mother’s pride. She describes her family as “my greatest accomplishment — they’ve turned out wonderfully and that’s what I’m the most proud of in my life.”

Along the way, Gentry trained as a certified nursing assistant and then as a registered nurse. She also went to school at night to get a real estate license and then later to learn early childhood education (after buying Wee Care). She even owned and operated Axelson’s Café in downtown Burlington for a few years.

“In the meantime, I read everything I could get my hands on about aging,” she notes, and she also visited facilities all across the country. All of this training and experience lead her along an unerring path to realizing her dream of improving care for the elderly.

One realistic and often unpleasant element of the business of caregiving she has had to work with is the changing climate of government regulations. For example, last year, the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) decreased the reimbursement by 50 percent for low-income, elderly residents. That one cut resulted in a loss of thousands of dollars for Gentry’s facilities. “It was big,” she says. Many institutions in Washington as a result refused to accept patients relying on DSHS payments and some even evicted them.

 

Totally involved

Gentry, however, decided to continue to accept residents on DSHS payments as often as she could afford. “Good care is not only for those with money,” she observes with conviction. “But I got hit with a curve ball and I still have to make it.”

Tough business decisions while at the same time providing good care mean that staffing is heavier than management in Gentry’s businesses. She wears many hats herself. “You really have to be involved — I do policies, management, staff meetings and training,” she says. Coincidentally illustrating her point, the telephone rings mid-sentence and she answers it while her secretary is on a break. “Large companies have all these people in place, but a small company like I am, it stops right here.”

She even sometimes works as reserve nurse. “I may work the night, evening or day shift — it can be a long day, sometimes 16 hours,” she admits. “But on the other hand, it keeps me in touch with what’s going on. I understand exactly what my staff is going through if I’m right there doing it.”

The level of responsibility in a business dedicated to caregiving is “awesome,” Gentry explains, and she takes it very seriously. “These are people whose lives are affected by my decisions, my services,” she says. “And not only am I taking care of the residents, I’m taking care of their families as well.”

Providing efficient but compassionate care is one of the reasons she also believes in promoting from within. “We build people,” she explains. “I find that once you have people who work well in your company, it works out well to help them to expand and grow.

“You share your vision and your employees pick it up — you can’t do it by yourself,” she says. “I don’t know everything, so I surround myself with very smart, capable people — I depend on them.”

This successful business owner’s advice to anyone dreaming of running his/her own business is to “work hard, prepare thoroughly, continue seeking education and training, surround yourself with good employees and be patient.

 

Building a business

“Be prepared to spend lots and lots of hours and don’t even expect to make a profit for the first five years or more,” she counsels. “You don’t know what’s going to happen — it takes time to build a business.”

Despite her busy schedule, she also tries to follow the standard advice for caregivers and business owners alike to take care of herself, too, whenever she can. Survival when the pace gets too frantic reminds Gentry to take time off and head for her vacation home in Seaside, Ore. “I refuel, then ‘take off’ again,” she says, smiling.

Continuing her dreams and plans into the future, she has decided to be patient, at least in the short term. “Right now, I just want to run my facilities really well,” she says. “I really want to keep it hands on and just be the very best we can be.

“I’d like to be able to make a difference, to be the leader in the field of long-term health care,” she says, her dark eyes sparkling. “That would make me feel very happy.”