It’s a market that is underserved and one that we have been talking about for years,” Gall told McKnight’s Senior Living at the time.
The name reflects the R.D.
Her return to Merrill Gardens came as the company acquired Portland, OR-based senior living management company Blue Harbor Senior Living, where Gall had been the CEO for the previous three years.
The Truewood brand, then, helps clarify the identity of the longstanding Merrill Gardens brand in the minds of consumers while creating opportunities in senior living to serve middle-income individuals, Gall said.
The company also is testing a service wherein residents complete grocery lists of breakfast items for a week, the community does the shopping and delivers the food, and then the resident can eat breakfast in his or her apartment.
“In the focus groups, there were a lot of people who said, ‘You know what? I just don’t really want to get up, get dressed, look good and go down for a light breakfast.
Truewood has universal workers called Truewood reps, a “resident experience partner who kind of floats throughout the community taking care of all different kinds of aspects of the job,” she said.
“It gives a career path to team members.
“There’s going to continue to be a need for this type of operation, this type of price-point community,” she said.
She holds a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from Kent State University and is the recipient of the Jesse H.