November 13, 2023 • 25 mins
Wade Chilcoat
Wade Chilcoat is the owner and administrator of Tilden Memory Care, a luxury eight-bed residential assisted living home in Alexandria, Virginia specializing in dementia care. Tilden is at the forefront of a paradigm shift in senior living with a new generation of fully licensed care homes providing all the safety and security of larger facilities in the comfort and intimacy of a family home. A limited number of residents and much smaller resident-to-caregiver ratios lead to less anxiety and confusion for those living with dementia as well as much higher levels of care and personalized attention.
Prior to creating Tilden Memory Care, Wade spent most of his life as a vagabond traveling the world. His taste for wanderlust started in 1989 when he was awarded a full congressional scholarship at fifteen to spend his junior year of high school abroad at what was then West Germany. This experience inspired him to double-major in German and Sociology at Emory University in Atlanta, where upon graduation he served as an associate envoy for the Danish Olympic delegation for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Europe shortly beckoned once again, and Wade was fortunate enough to win a Fullbright English teaching scholarship to teach in Vienna, Austria. Wade loved teaching and sharing his knowledge and skills to help others, and this first foray into being an educator would later form the backbone of his professional career.
After returning to the USA Wade quickly found work in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department at Goldman Sachs performing document creation and editing. Although he loved being surrounded by some of the most intelligent and driven people in the world at Goldman, the work itself was not igniting his passion. September 11th, 2001 changed all of that.
With all of Wall Street shut down due to the World Trade Center bombing, Wade moved to South Korea with a one-year contract to teach English to children. What was meant to be a one-year sojourn to do explore Asia and do some soul-searching ended up being a sixteen-year love affair with teaching and Korea. Wade enrolled in UMBC’s online graduate TESOL program (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) where he earned a perfect 4.0 GPA while still working full-time teaching business English to adults at a private language school in Seoul. It was at this school during a 7am business English class where Wade met a shy Korean nurse named Dongjin who would later become his lovely wife and partner at Tilden Memory Care.
Upon completion of the master’s degree, Wade then finished out his teaching career in Korea working as an English professor at several Korean universities before getting a full scholarship to study in the US-accredited MBA program at Solbridge International School of Business in Daejeon, South Korea. Wade graduated from Solbridge as valedictorian and then shortly thereafter moved back to the DC-metro area with his family to be closer to his aging mother in Maryland and raise their two young sons in the USA.
Wade Chilcoat is the owner and administrator of Tilden Memory Care, a luxury eight-bed residential assisted living home in Alexandria, Virginia specializing in dementia care. Tilden is at the forefront of a paradigm shift in senior living with a new generation of fully licensed care homes providing all the safety and security of larger facilities in the comfort and intimacy of a family home. A limited number of residents and much smaller resident-to-caregiver ratios lead to less anxiety and confusion for those living with dementia as well as much higher levels of care and personalized attention.
Prior to creating Tilden Memory Care, Wade spent most of his life as a vagabond traveling the world. His taste for wanderlust started in 1989 when he was awarded a full congressional scholarship at fifteen to spend his junior year of high school abroad at what was then West Germany. This experience inspired him to double-major in German and Sociology at Emory University in Atlanta, where upon graduation he served as an associate envoy for the Danish Olympic delegation for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Europe shortly beckoned once again, and Wade was fortunate enough to win a Fullbright English teaching scholarship to teach in Vienna, Austria. Wade loved teaching and sharing his knowledge and skills to help others, and this first foray into being an educator would later form the backbone of his professional career.
After returning to the USA Wade quickly found work in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department at Goldman Sachs performing document creation and editing. Although he loved being surrounded by some of the most intelligent and driven people in the world at Goldman, the work itself was not igniting his passion. September 11th, 2001 changed all of that.
With all of Wall Street shut down due to the World Trade Center bombing, Wade moved to South Korea with a one-year contract to teach English to children. What was meant to be a one-year sojourn to do explore Asia and do some soul-searching ended up being a sixteen-year love affair with teaching and Korea. Wade enrolled in UMBC’s online graduate TESOL program (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) where he earned a perfect 4.0 GPA while still working full-time teaching business English to adults at a private language school in Seoul. It was at this school during a 7am business English class where Wade met a shy Korean nurse named Dongjin who would later become his lovely wife and partner at Tilden Memory Care.
Upon completion of the master’s degree, Wade then finished out his teaching career in Korea working as an English professor at several Korean universities before getting a full scholarship to study in the US-accredited MBA program at Solbridge International School of Business in Daejeon, South Korea. Wade graduated from Solbridge as valedictorian and then shortly thereafter moved back to the DC-metro area with his family to be closer to his aging mother in Maryland and raise their two young sons in the USA.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
M and T Bank Prison CEOs.You should know a power bite. Iheartadia.
Let's be Wade Chilcot. He isthe owner of Tilden Memory Care in
Alexandria, Virginia. Before we talkmore about Wade's company, what they do
and who they care for, Ifirst asked him to talk a little bit
about himself, where he's from,and his origin story. So it all
(00:21):
started not too far from here.I was born and raised on a horse
farm out in Westminster, Maryland,about an hour northwest of Baltimore. My
father was a veterinarian specialized in smallanimal large animal, mostly horses, and
so I grew up on this lovelyhorse farm and at the time I didn't
(00:44):
appreciate it. It felt like thisbeautiful prison for me because all of my
friends that I wanted to play withwere an hour away and I was stuck
out on this farm in the country. So I think that led to a
life of the wanderlust. So whenI was sixteen, I applied for and
got a scholarship to be an exchangestudent and was at the time West Germany.
And I'm going to age myself rightnow, but I was there lo
(01:08):
and behold the very year that theBerlin Wall came down, So as a
sixteen year old, I got tonot only witness, but participate in the
dismantling of East Germany. And Ithink that experience at such a young age
really influenced me and shaped me forthe rest of my life. So after
(01:32):
college, I was and I wentto school down in Atlanta, Georgia.
My father went to University of Georgiaand my brother went to Virginia Tech.
And so they always encouraged me togo south because the people are nicer in
the weather's warmer, no offense tothe northerns. But I followed their advice.
So I went down to Emory Universityin Atlanta, had a great time,
(01:52):
and then after college, I reallydidn't know what I wanted to do.
I didn't really know my purpose.Some friends of mine had reliquated to
New York City, and like alot of people in their twenties, I
moved to New York and I gota job working down on Wall Street,
not really doing banking, but Iwas editing kind of Excel spreadsheets and word
(02:15):
documents, and sadly at that time, it was right during nine to eleven,
so I was on my way towork down about a block away from
the World the World Trade Center,where they stopped my subway. They didn't
they didn't tell us what was goingon, and so I was kind of
(02:37):
trapped in the subway for about twohours. They finally let us out,
and it was just all you sawwas this big mushroom cloud. So they
didn't tell us what was going on, but we knew something very serious had
taken place. And so once Ifound out about nine to eleven, New
York was just a miserable place tobe again, I felt kind of lost.
(02:59):
I was looking for purple. Afriend of mine suggested, you know,
doing some traveling. So I endedup moving to South Korea, and
I was planning on teaching English fora year and doing some traveling, kind
of getting my head together and figuringout what the next step would be,
and it ended up clicking. Ifound my calling. I loved teaching.
(03:19):
What was supposed to be a oneyear sojourn ended up being sixteen years.
And I went over there and gotmy master's degree in teaching English to speakers
of other languages, and then finallyI worked my way up to teaching English
at the university level and the universityI was working at had an international business
(03:42):
school, so I was able toget a free MBA just because I was
a professor layer and that's been instrumentalin helping me open and run toil Memory
Care. But I guess most importantlyabout my time in Korea where I met
the love of my life, mymy current wife and mother of our two
kids, dong Jin. She wasmy seven a m business English student.
(04:06):
She was a nurse and she wantedto brush up on her English, and
that's how we met, and thenwe h we had our first child,
uh Mark, in Korea, butthen we decided we wanted to raise him
in the United States, uh justbecause Korea is a very tough place for
children that you don't really have muchof a childhood because the educational system is
(04:27):
so draconian. And then that's reallykind of how Tilden Memory Care started.
And when we moved back to Americabecause I want to be closer to my
own mother, who was in hereighties at this point, it really hit
me as a reverse culture shock.Just I was used to living in Asia,
where you know, to be aseniors, to be revered, to
(04:48):
be honored, it's something that youaspire to, whereas in America, sadly,
for the most part, we warehouseour seniors. We try to keep
him out of sight, out ofmind. There's also a lot of fraud
and neglect going on, so thatwas kind of really hard for me to
experience. And then my wife,she at the time, was an RN
(05:10):
she just got her Nurse practitioner license, and she was telling me a little
bit about just the growing demand fordementia care, that it's growing exponentially and
we can't keep up with it.So when I came back to America,
I got a job working in commercialreal estate. It was I applied for
(05:33):
jobs while I was in Korea becauseI was desperate. I wanted to have
something in my hand before I cameover. And one of the gentlemen I
was working with he wanted to openup a memory care. I think strictly
for the money. All he caredabout was making money, whether it was
taking care of people or making widgetsor whatever. So he tasked me with
(05:56):
trying to find land for him.And this was like in Loudon County of
looking on this land, so unfortunately, the same land that's suitable for senior
living is also the same land zonedfor data centers, so it's very difficult
to get land for these senior livingcenters. So he started getting frustrated.
But then I found out about thepossibility of these smaller homes. So in
(06:23):
Virginia, you can open a licenseassisted living facility in a residential, single
family home, as long as youlimit it to eight or fewer residents.
I mentioned this to my mentor andhe said he looked into it, but
you couldn't make any money on it, so he immediately dismissed it. But
this actually intrigued me even more becauseI was like, well, if it's
(06:45):
not that profitable, there probably aren'tthat many people doing it. And I
talked to my wife about this,and we thought this is something that would
be a good fit for us,just because I loved teaching, I loved
helping people. I felt like Iwas missing that working in commercial real estate.
And then my wife, with hernursing background, she would be a
(07:06):
great asset into making sure we givegreat care. And so that's kind of
how tot and Memory Care was bornand I was born. I guess that
was almost three years ago. Westarted this whole journey and We finally opened
our doors January first, twenty twentythree, so we're excited how things turned
out. Again, you never knowwhat the future holds. If you ask
(07:27):
me when I was in you know, if you asked me a twenty two,
would you be doing this in thirtyyears or so, I'd say probably
not. But like I said,we're excited and we feel so grateful that
we have an opportunity to help familiesin need. Well wait, thank you
for sharing all that. And you'renot the first owner of any business that
had a lot of twist and turns. I took them into an unusual direction
(07:48):
to start their own business. Sowe have a lot to talk about when
it comes to Tilden Memory Care.I did first want to ask you if
you do have any type of emissionstatement. What is that? Yes?
So our mission statement is we wantto be the best provider of dementia care
in Northern Virginia, big or small. So a lot of people they look
(08:13):
at the little homes that like minekind of like almost as a budget option,
not really on the same level asyou know, the sunrises and the
Brookdales. I want to change that. I want to have our home be
the premier option for people looking fordementia care. I know it's going to
take time, but I'm pretty confident. I think we have a great team,
(08:35):
we have great home, and Ithink I think, you know,
if I were one of the bigguys, I'd be scared. Okay,
now you've already answered a little bitof my question, but I am going
to go back there because you doaddress on the website and I wish more
CEOs and owners did this about howto differentiate themselves from everybody else of their
competing yets. Well, we'll getback there. Let's put a pin in
that right now. But I didn'twant to ask about this overall about what
(08:56):
you offer because it is an unusualbusiness model. You're in residents, you
have eight rooms, so it's muchdifferent than some of the larger facilities that
house dementia patients. With all thatsaid, what's the criteria to join your
residence and you know, kind ofmaybe go through step by step if somebody
had a parent or somebody that hasdementia, how they contact you, the
(09:18):
criteria and all that goes into beinga part of everything that is tilled in
memory care. Sure, and likeI said, my heart really goes out
to the families because I think mostpeople don't realize when a loved one gets
diagnosed with dementia, it really affectsall stakeholders, and families are not ready
(09:39):
for this. They're not prepared forit, you know. They they try
to keep it out of sight,out of mind because it's something that's very
difficult emotionally to deal with. Somy first suggestion is do a lot of
homework. You know, it's reallynot one size fits all, it's really
what's the best fit for you andyour family and your loved one. I'm
(10:03):
a big believer in the small homeslike mine, because I think that we
can offer a level of care thatthe larger facilities can't can't match. But
having said that, if someone's veryearly stage and they're very social and they
love doing a lot of outings,then I think one of the bigger facilities
might be a better fit at thatpoint. So it really depends on the
(10:24):
person. I would also say tryto take advantage of as many free resources
as you can, so there area lot of options out there. There's
you can have targivers come to yourhome, there's adult daycare, there's a
great there's a great facility we havein Fairfax County called Insight Memory Care.
(10:46):
So a lot of times when familiescall me, and you know, I'm
the first phone call they make.I said, hey, you know you
might want to check out Insight aswell, because maybe your loved one isn't
ready for a residential program yet,and you know, adult daycare might be
a better fit for them at thisstage in their journey. As far as
Tilden Memorycare, you can go toour website. It's www dot Tilden Memorycare
(11:07):
dot com. TI L D EN. And people ask me, what
is a Tilden And that was myfather's middle name. So the home is
named after my father who passed away, and so it's kind of an homage
to him. But if you goto the website, you can there's a
place you can fill out some contactinformation and reach out to us via email.
(11:30):
So our phone number is seven ohthree eight two eight seven seven two
one, and then from there wecan have a conversation and see if Tilden
is a good fit for your lovedone and if not, maybe some other
choices, some other options that mightbe a better fit. Just because we're
called Tilden Memory Care doesn't mean weonly take people at dementia. So we
(11:52):
are licensed as a Virginia assisted livingfacility, which means you don't have to
have any type of Alzheimer's or dementiato be a resident at Tilden. As
a matter of fact, one ofour residents right now, she's one hundred
and eighty years old. Wow,Yes, that's not a typo, not
a spot of dementia. She's assharp as you and I. She reads
(12:13):
the newspaper every day. She tellsme what's going on. She's a sweetheart.
But other than her other residents,do you have various forms of dementia
in various stages? Let's do this. You talked a little bit about differentiating
That was answering part of my question. But I maybe let's go through a
day there with the current residents thatyou have there, from when everybody gets
(12:37):
up in the morning till when everybodygoes asleep. What is a day like
there? About what you offer andwhat it's like for the residents to be
there at tilten Sure, so themornings are probably the busiest time, just
because all of our residents are insome form of medication. Or another,
and the medical what we call medicationmanagement, is probably the most important aspect
(13:05):
of maintaining health and safety for theresidents. So a typical resident, they'd
wake you know, we'd wake themup, or if they want to sleep
in late, we can let themsleep in late. Again. The nice
thing about a smaller home like oursis we can work on their natural schedule,
so a lot of times they'll wakeup, get their morning medication from
(13:28):
our nurse. Maybe we will getthem ready for breakfasts. That would entitle
taking them to the bathroom toileting them. If it's shower day, they would
get their morning shower, make surethe room's nice and clean. Then we'd
take them out to the dining roomarea where they'd have breakfast with the other
(13:50):
residents. So all of our mealsare prepared in house. One of my
many jobs is the grocery shoppers,So I go to Costco or Safeway a
couple times a week and buy thefood and then my staff prepare breakfast every
morning, so they will have breakfastwith the other residents, and then throughout
(14:11):
the rest of the day we'll tryto engage them in various activities. We
try to have outings a couple oftimes a week. Last week we went
to the library. We took onehundred and eight year old out to the
library. She had a blast,especially when she found out they had a
lot of free newspapers. She lovesthat. And then we try to engage
(14:31):
the families as much as we canas well. So a small home like
ours, it's very similar to adaycare, where you know, people go
to the daycare that's in their neighborhood. So the smaller homes like ours,
a lot of our residents are fromthe neighborhoods, so we have family members
coming in daily to see their lovedhome, which we like because again it
(14:54):
feels more like a home. It'smore intimate than you know, a big
place that feels like a five starhotel. But every day is a little
bit different. A lot of itdepends on the needs of the residence.
With you know, I tell peopledementia care, all bets are off.
You can have a schedule, butyou never know what's going to happen.
Sometimes people have good days, sometimesthey have bad days, and you kind
(15:16):
of have to be ready for everything. You have to have a lot of
patience and be very flexible to addresschallenges as they occur. I think a
way to a lot of our listenersthat are tuning into our conversation where I
now can relate because either dementia,Alzheimer's, or some kind of memory loss
is somewhere in the family tree thathas happened to them, and it's happened
(15:37):
to me too. With my mom'smom, she was healthy as a horse
and she had it for ten yearsand it was rough, And I wanted
to ask you about that. Youknow, you've got to have a certain
kind of heart to take care ofpeople in general. With all that said,
and I imagine you have very challengingdays, but I also imagine you
have some very just remarkable and fulfillingdays out there. I'd love to ask
(15:58):
you just a few lame questions.What is it like when the patients and
the residents are interacting with each otherand they have maybe severe memory loss.
Is it's gotta be different from whenyou and I are talking right now?
What's it like? It's you yourejoice in those small moments of of laughter
(16:18):
and joy. When you don't,you can forget about dementia or these people
have a disease, those are themoments that I treasure. Like the other
day, we had a spontaneous danceparty breakout love It. We put on
some I think there's a YouTube videothat's like the seventies funk and we just
started getting up and my caregivers starteddancing and everyone had and everyone had a
(16:41):
great time. And you know,little moments like that is really what it's
all about. And and you know, I tell people, I tell families,
they're gonna be good days and baddays, and as time goes on,
unfortunately, they're gonna be more baddays than good days. So when
you have a good day, reallyreally embrace it, treasure that moment.
(17:03):
And luckily we do have those momentsand that you know they are treasures.
You mentioned families, and I imaginethat communication can be very busy for you.
In just a moment, we're goingto talk a little bit about the
residents because there are still some roomsavailable if anybody's interested in that. It's
listening to the conversation and way toget the website again. All the education
(17:25):
and the sign up forums are onthere. But we'll talk about that in
a moment. But when it comesto families and communication, I imagine they're
super appreciative of the care that theygive, not only because of your wonderful
business model. Of it's small,so there's you know, extra care going
on and attention. But what's likefor the families when it comes to visiting
or communication? How's my mom anddad doing or so and so? How
(17:47):
does that all that work? Andhow's it been for you guys? Sure?
So, as I mentioned, becausewe are in a neighborhood, most
of our family members nearby and theyvisit daily. Nice. Something else we
offer is we offer a service calledFamilio, and it's basically like Facebook for
(18:11):
senior citizens. Family Members get anapp on their phone and they can upload
pictures and make comments throughout the week, just like you would have Facebook.
And then every week I print outa hard color copy of that which is
like a personal family newspaper. Soit's another way that family members all over
the world can stay in touch withtheir loved ones that tilt in memory care.
(18:33):
We have one residence. She lovesit. Every Monday morning, you
know, we give her her littlefamily newspaper and she takes out the breakfast
table and starts bragging to all theresidents, showing off for grandkids. I
think communication is crucial, not justwith family members but between staff members because
you know, we are twenty fourhours a day, three hundred and sixty
(18:55):
five days a year, with peopleworking at night and weekends and day shift,
so communication is key. We havean open door visitation policy, so
unlike some other places where okay,visiting hours are Tuesdays between one thirty and
two thirty and call us five hoursahead of time if you're showing up,
(19:15):
and I always question that because I'mthinking, what are you trying to hide?
We don't do that. I encouragefamilies to visit and visit often because
again, it makes it feel morelike a home and also, you know,
loved ones. The residents want tosee their loved ones as much as
they can. Now I will saythere is a caveat to our visiting policy.
(19:36):
If your visits are coming at atime that is disturbing to the resident
or other residents, we may askthat you come at a different time.
So, for example, meal timescan be challenging for residents because cognitively there's
a lot going on to remember toyou know, hold up your fork and
chew and swallow, and for someonethat to mention that can be difficult knock
(20:02):
on wood that hasn't happened yet,but that might be an example if we
get a resident who's getting triggered easilyor agitated easily during meal time. So
who just ask families to come beforeor after that? All right? For
context from my next question, I'vehad a few CEOs that actually work with
their spouse, which means they seeeach other a lot, and at one
(20:25):
time in radio, I've been inthe same building as my wife and it's
become quite comical. She's on thesales side, I'm on the programing side.
You can just start the comedy reelthere from butting heads. So with
all that said, you've been withyour wife for a long time, but
you also run a business. There'sa lot of CEOs out there that are
couples that might want to start asmall or medium sized business. And I
(20:45):
know that you and I are smilingright now as we're on camera on teams
right now. But with all thatsaid, advice and also what it's like
to work on a business with aspouse in season as often as you do,
I would say my first piece ofadvice is marry the right person.
Good advice, which I was luckyenough to wait, Wait, is crack
the case everybody that's great based sold. And also i'd say, in our
(21:10):
situation, my wife and I arebasically polar opposites. We compliment each other
very well. I'm going to embarrassher. She's very shy. The idea
of doing a radio interview would bemore mortifying to her, whereas I quite
enjoy talking to people. I'm veryoutgoing and she's very detail oriented. She's
great with paperwork. When she wasin Korea, she actually used to run
(21:33):
clinical drug trials for these big pharmaceuticalcompanies, so she's so I guess we
really do compliment each other because thethings that she hates doing, like you
know, going out and meeting newpeople and being very open and extroverted,
are the things she would gladly passon to me. And then you know,
I, by necessity as an administrator, there is a lot of paperwork
(21:57):
involved, but it's always it's goodhaving her look over my shoulder to make
sure all the teaser crossing the eyesor dotted as well. So we actually
compliment each other pretty well. Well, that's great. And if I'm going
to read between the lines, ofway. Just what he said, and
my wife talk about this all thetime. Divide and conquer everybody. Go
with your strengths. That's really key. That's really key. Well, wait,
(22:18):
as we wrap up our conversation,and I can't tell you how much
I appreciate your time with your wife. Do where your team does. Maybe
if you could give our listener justone more takeaway that you want them to
leave with when it comes to Tildenmemory care, yes, I would say.
Well, first of all, ifif you have a loved one that
is experiencing dementia, my heart goesout to you. It's never easy,
(22:41):
but I want you to know thereis help out there. Please seek out
resources, look at options. Youknow you can always call us, even
if you know we're not a goodfit. We like to help people anyway.
But always know that this, youknow, there's still is joy.
Just because someone has a dimension diagnosisdoesn't mean their life is over. There's
(23:04):
still plenty of time to you know, treasure these memories and then spend time
with your loved ones. So don'ttake you know, I don't want people
to be too discouraged because there's stilla lot of laughter and days of joy
left ahead. So it's not allglouom and doom. But like I said,
(23:25):
take advantage of the resources out there. There is a lot out there
that and a lot of good peoplewith good hearts that are that can be
very helpful, very good. Allright, let's do this, So let's
everybody know exactly what city are locatedin a phone number, and let's give
that website one more time. Sure, so we are in Alexandria, Virginia.
That's the Fairfax County side of it. So we're very close to a
(23:47):
Nova Mount Verdon Hospital if people arefamiliar with that. So our phone number
is seven oh three, eight toeight, seven seven to one, and
that goes to me directly, andthen you can also reach us on the
web at www dot Tildenmemorycare dot comand Tilden again is TI L. D.
N Wade. I started off ourconversation by thanking you for what you
(24:11):
do, you guys, your wife, your team, your angels, because
this is hard work and it's notpretty, but families need people like you
to take care of their loved oneswhen they're going through a very difficult time.
And folks, if you've looked atthe statistics out there. It's just
going to get much much worse outthere, so you have to prepare,
unfortunately to kind of do this.But with good people like Wade, his
(24:34):
wife and this team will take goodcare of you so well. Thank you
so much for your time. Continuesuccess, and we so appreciate you joining
us on CEOs. You should know, thank you so much. I'm really
grateful for this opportunity. Thank you. Our community partner, M and T
Bank supports CEOs, you should know. Is part of their ongoing commitment to
building strong communities, and that startsby backing the businesses within them. As
(24:57):
a bank for communities, M andT believes in dedicating time, talent,
and resources to help local businesses thrive, because when businesses succeed, our communities succeed
M and T Bank Prison CEOs.You should know a power bite. Iheartadia.
Let's be Wade Chilcot. He isthe owner of Tilden Memory Care in
Alexandria, Virginia. Before we talkmore about Wade's company, what they do
and who they care for, Ifirst asked him to talk a little bit
about himself, where he's from,and his origin story. So it all
(00:21):
started not too far from here.I was born and raised on a horse
farm out in Westminster, Maryland,about an hour northwest of Baltimore. My
father was a veterinarian specialized in smallanimal large animal, mostly horses, and
so I grew up on this lovelyhorse farm and at the time I didn't
(00:44):
appreciate it. It felt like thisbeautiful prison for me because all of my
friends that I wanted to play withwere an hour away and I was stuck
out on this farm in the country. So I think that led to a
life of the wanderlust. So whenI was sixteen, I applied for and
got a scholarship to be an exchangestudent and was at the time West Germany.
And I'm going to age myself rightnow, but I was there lo
(01:08):
and behold the very year that theBerlin Wall came down, So as a
sixteen year old, I got tonot only witness, but participate in the
dismantling of East Germany. And Ithink that experience at such a young age
really influenced me and shaped me forthe rest of my life. So after
(01:32):
college, I was and I wentto school down in Atlanta, Georgia.
My father went to University of Georgiaand my brother went to Virginia Tech.
And so they always encouraged me togo south because the people are nicer in
the weather's warmer, no offense tothe northerns. But I followed their advice.
So I went down to Emory Universityin Atlanta, had a great time,
(01:52):
and then after college, I reallydidn't know what I wanted to do.
I didn't really know my purpose.Some friends of mine had reliquated to
New York City, and like alot of people in their twenties, I
moved to New York and I gota job working down on Wall Street,
not really doing banking, but Iwas editing kind of Excel spreadsheets and word
(02:15):
documents, and sadly at that time, it was right during nine to eleven,
so I was on my way towork down about a block away from
the World the World Trade Center,where they stopped my subway. They didn't
they didn't tell us what was goingon, and so I was kind of
(02:37):
trapped in the subway for about twohours. They finally let us out,
and it was just all you sawwas this big mushroom cloud. So they
didn't tell us what was going on, but we knew something very serious had
taken place. And so once Ifound out about nine to eleven, New
York was just a miserable place tobe again, I felt kind of lost.
(02:59):
I was looking for purple. Afriend of mine suggested, you know,
doing some traveling. So I endedup moving to South Korea, and
I was planning on teaching English fora year and doing some traveling, kind
of getting my head together and figuringout what the next step would be,
and it ended up clicking. Ifound my calling. I loved teaching.
(03:19):
What was supposed to be a oneyear sojourn ended up being sixteen years.
And I went over there and gotmy master's degree in teaching English to speakers
of other languages, and then finallyI worked my way up to teaching English
at the university level and the universityI was working at had an international business
(03:42):
school, so I was able toget a free MBA just because I was
a professor layer and that's been instrumentalin helping me open and run toil Memory
Care. But I guess most importantlyabout my time in Korea where I met
the love of my life, mymy current wife and mother of our two
kids, dong Jin. She wasmy seven a m business English student.
(04:06):
She was a nurse and she wantedto brush up on her English, and
that's how we met, and thenwe h we had our first child,
uh Mark, in Korea, butthen we decided we wanted to raise him
in the United States, uh justbecause Korea is a very tough place for
children that you don't really have muchof a childhood because the educational system is
(04:27):
so draconian. And then that's reallykind of how Tilden Memory Care started.
And when we moved back to Americabecause I want to be closer to my
own mother, who was in hereighties at this point, it really hit
me as a reverse culture shock.Just I was used to living in Asia,
where you know, to be aseniors, to be revered, to
(04:48):
be honored, it's something that youaspire to, whereas in America, sadly,
for the most part, we warehouseour seniors. We try to keep
him out of sight, out ofmind. There's also a lot of fraud
and neglect going on, so thatwas kind of really hard for me to
experience. And then my wife,she at the time, was an RN
(05:10):
she just got her Nurse practitioner license, and she was telling me a little
bit about just the growing demand fordementia care, that it's growing exponentially and
we can't keep up with it.So when I came back to America,
I got a job working in commercialreal estate. It was I applied for
(05:33):
jobs while I was in Korea becauseI was desperate. I wanted to have
something in my hand before I cameover. And one of the gentlemen I
was working with he wanted to openup a memory care. I think strictly
for the money. All he caredabout was making money, whether it was
taking care of people or making widgetsor whatever. So he tasked me with
(05:56):
trying to find land for him.And this was like in Loudon County of
looking on this land, so unfortunately, the same land that's suitable for senior
living is also the same land zonedfor data centers, so it's very difficult
to get land for these senior livingcenters. So he started getting frustrated.
But then I found out about thepossibility of these smaller homes. So in
(06:23):
Virginia, you can open a licenseassisted living facility in a residential, single
family home, as long as youlimit it to eight or fewer residents.
I mentioned this to my mentor andhe said he looked into it, but
you couldn't make any money on it, so he immediately dismissed it. But
this actually intrigued me even more becauseI was like, well, if it's
(06:45):
not that profitable, there probably aren'tthat many people doing it. And I
talked to my wife about this,and we thought this is something that would
be a good fit for us,just because I loved teaching, I loved
helping people. I felt like Iwas missing that working in commercial real estate.
And then my wife, with hernursing background, she would be a
(07:06):
great asset into making sure we givegreat care. And so that's kind of
how tot and Memory Care was bornand I was born. I guess that
was almost three years ago. Westarted this whole journey and We finally opened
our doors January first, twenty twentythree, so we're excited how things turned
out. Again, you never knowwhat the future holds. If you ask
(07:27):
me when I was in you know, if you asked me a twenty two,
would you be doing this in thirtyyears or so, I'd say probably
not. But like I said,we're excited and we feel so grateful that
we have an opportunity to help familiesin need. Well wait, thank you
for sharing all that. And you'renot the first owner of any business that
had a lot of twist and turns. I took them into an unusual direction
(07:48):
to start their own business. Sowe have a lot to talk about when
it comes to Tilden Memory Care.I did first want to ask you if
you do have any type of emissionstatement. What is that? Yes?
So our mission statement is we wantto be the best provider of dementia care
in Northern Virginia, big or small. So a lot of people they look
(08:13):
at the little homes that like minekind of like almost as a budget option,
not really on the same level asyou know, the sunrises and the
Brookdales. I want to change that. I want to have our home be
the premier option for people looking fordementia care. I know it's going to
take time, but I'm pretty confident. I think we have a great team,
(08:35):
we have great home, and Ithink I think, you know,
if I were one of the bigguys, I'd be scared. Okay,
now you've already answered a little bitof my question, but I am going
to go back there because you doaddress on the website and I wish more
CEOs and owners did this about howto differentiate themselves from everybody else of their
competing yets. Well, we'll getback there. Let's put a pin in
that right now. But I didn'twant to ask about this overall about what
(08:56):
you offer because it is an unusualbusiness model. You're in residents, you
have eight rooms, so it's muchdifferent than some of the larger facilities that
house dementia patients. With all thatsaid, what's the criteria to join your
residence and you know, kind ofmaybe go through step by step if somebody
had a parent or somebody that hasdementia, how they contact you, the
(09:18):
criteria and all that goes into beinga part of everything that is tilled in
memory care. Sure, and likeI said, my heart really goes out
to the families because I think mostpeople don't realize when a loved one gets
diagnosed with dementia, it really affectsall stakeholders, and families are not ready
(09:39):
for this. They're not prepared forit, you know. They they try
to keep it out of sight,out of mind because it's something that's very
difficult emotionally to deal with. Somy first suggestion is do a lot of
homework. You know, it's reallynot one size fits all, it's really
what's the best fit for you andyour family and your loved one. I'm
(10:03):
a big believer in the small homeslike mine, because I think that we
can offer a level of care thatthe larger facilities can't can't match. But
having said that, if someone's veryearly stage and they're very social and they
love doing a lot of outings,then I think one of the bigger facilities
might be a better fit at thatpoint. So it really depends on the
(10:24):
person. I would also say tryto take advantage of as many free resources
as you can, so there area lot of options out there. There's
you can have targivers come to yourhome, there's adult daycare, there's a
great there's a great facility we havein Fairfax County called Insight Memory Care.
(10:46):
So a lot of times when familiescall me, and you know, I'm
the first phone call they make.I said, hey, you know you
might want to check out Insight aswell, because maybe your loved one isn't
ready for a residential program yet,and you know, adult daycare might be
a better fit for them at thisstage in their journey. As far as
Tilden Memorycare, you can go toour website. It's www dot Tilden Memorycare
(11:07):
dot com. TI L D EN. And people ask me, what
is a Tilden And that was myfather's middle name. So the home is
named after my father who passed away, and so it's kind of an homage
to him. But if you goto the website, you can there's a
place you can fill out some contactinformation and reach out to us via email.
(11:30):
So our phone number is seven ohthree eight two eight seven seven two
one, and then from there wecan have a conversation and see if Tilden
is a good fit for your lovedone and if not, maybe some other
choices, some other options that mightbe a better fit. Just because we're
called Tilden Memory Care doesn't mean weonly take people at dementia. So we
(11:52):
are licensed as a Virginia assisted livingfacility, which means you don't have to
have any type of Alzheimer's or dementiato be a resident at Tilden. As
a matter of fact, one ofour residents right now, she's one hundred
and eighty years old. Wow,Yes, that's not a typo, not
a spot of dementia. She's assharp as you and I. She reads
(12:13):
the newspaper every day. She tellsme what's going on. She's a sweetheart.
But other than her other residents,do you have various forms of dementia
in various stages? Let's do this. You talked a little bit about differentiating
That was answering part of my question. But I maybe let's go through a
day there with the current residents thatyou have there, from when everybody gets
(12:37):
up in the morning till when everybodygoes asleep. What is a day like
there? About what you offer andwhat it's like for the residents to be
there at tilten Sure, so themornings are probably the busiest time, just
because all of our residents are insome form of medication. Or another,
and the medical what we call medicationmanagement, is probably the most important aspect
(13:05):
of maintaining health and safety for theresidents. So a typical resident, they'd
wake you know, we'd wake themup, or if they want to sleep
in late, we can let themsleep in late. Again. The nice
thing about a smaller home like oursis we can work on their natural schedule,
so a lot of times they'll wakeup, get their morning medication from
(13:28):
our nurse. Maybe we will getthem ready for breakfasts. That would entitle
taking them to the bathroom toileting them. If it's shower day, they would
get their morning shower, make surethe room's nice and clean. Then we'd
take them out to the dining roomarea where they'd have breakfast with the other
(13:50):
residents. So all of our mealsare prepared in house. One of my
many jobs is the grocery shoppers,So I go to Costco or Safeway a
couple times a week and buy thefood and then my staff prepare breakfast every
morning, so they will have breakfastwith the other residents, and then throughout
(14:11):
the rest of the day we'll tryto engage them in various activities. We
try to have outings a couple oftimes a week. Last week we went
to the library. We took onehundred and eight year old out to the
library. She had a blast,especially when she found out they had a
lot of free newspapers. She lovesthat. And then we try to engage
(14:31):
the families as much as we canas well. So a small home like
ours, it's very similar to adaycare, where you know, people go
to the daycare that's in their neighborhood. So the smaller homes like ours,
a lot of our residents are fromthe neighborhoods, so we have family members
coming in daily to see their lovedhome, which we like because again it
(14:54):
feels more like a home. It'smore intimate than you know, a big
place that feels like a five starhotel. But every day is a little
bit different. A lot of itdepends on the needs of the residence.
With you know, I tell peopledementia care, all bets are off.
You can have a schedule, butyou never know what's going to happen.
Sometimes people have good days, sometimesthey have bad days, and you kind
(15:16):
of have to be ready for everything. You have to have a lot of
patience and be very flexible to addresschallenges as they occur. I think a
way to a lot of our listenersthat are tuning into our conversation where I
now can relate because either dementia,Alzheimer's, or some kind of memory loss
is somewhere in the family tree thathas happened to them, and it's happened
(15:37):
to me too. With my mom'smom, she was healthy as a horse
and she had it for ten yearsand it was rough, And I wanted
to ask you about that. Youknow, you've got to have a certain
kind of heart to take care ofpeople in general. With all that said,
and I imagine you have very challengingdays, but I also imagine you
have some very just remarkable and fulfillingdays out there. I'd love to ask
(15:58):
you just a few lame questions.What is it like when the patients and
the residents are interacting with each otherand they have maybe severe memory loss.
Is it's gotta be different from whenyou and I are talking right now?
What's it like? It's you yourejoice in those small moments of of laughter
(16:18):
and joy. When you don't,you can forget about dementia or these people
have a disease, those are themoments that I treasure. Like the other
day, we had a spontaneous danceparty breakout love It. We put on
some I think there's a YouTube videothat's like the seventies funk and we just
started getting up and my caregivers starteddancing and everyone had and everyone had a
(16:41):
great time. And you know,little moments like that is really what it's
all about. And and you know, I tell people, I tell families,
they're gonna be good days and baddays, and as time goes on,
unfortunately, they're gonna be more baddays than good days. So when
you have a good day, reallyreally embrace it, treasure that moment.
(17:03):
And luckily we do have those momentsand that you know they are treasures.
You mentioned families, and I imaginethat communication can be very busy for you.
In just a moment, we're goingto talk a little bit about the
residents because there are still some roomsavailable if anybody's interested in that. It's
listening to the conversation and way toget the website again. All the education
(17:25):
and the sign up forums are onthere. But we'll talk about that in
a moment. But when it comesto families and communication, I imagine they're
super appreciative of the care that theygive, not only because of your wonderful
business model. Of it's small,so there's you know, extra care going
on and attention. But what's likefor the families when it comes to visiting
or communication? How's my mom anddad doing or so and so? How
(17:47):
does that all that work? Andhow's it been for you guys? Sure?
So, as I mentioned, becausewe are in a neighborhood, most
of our family members nearby and theyvisit daily. Nice. Something else we
offer is we offer a service calledFamilio, and it's basically like Facebook for
(18:11):
senior citizens. Family Members get anapp on their phone and they can upload
pictures and make comments throughout the week, just like you would have Facebook.
And then every week I print outa hard color copy of that which is
like a personal family newspaper. Soit's another way that family members all over
the world can stay in touch withtheir loved ones that tilt in memory care.
(18:33):
We have one residence. She lovesit. Every Monday morning, you
know, we give her her littlefamily newspaper and she takes out the breakfast
table and starts bragging to all theresidents, showing off for grandkids. I
think communication is crucial, not justwith family members but between staff members because
you know, we are twenty fourhours a day, three hundred and sixty
(18:55):
five days a year, with peopleworking at night and weekends and day shift,
so communication is key. We havean open door visitation policy, so
unlike some other places where okay,visiting hours are Tuesdays between one thirty and
two thirty and call us five hoursahead of time if you're showing up,
(19:15):
and I always question that because I'mthinking, what are you trying to hide?
We don't do that. I encouragefamilies to visit and visit often because
again, it makes it feel morelike a home and also, you know,
loved ones. The residents want tosee their loved ones as much as
they can. Now I will saythere is a caveat to our visiting policy.
(19:36):
If your visits are coming at atime that is disturbing to the resident
or other residents, we may askthat you come at a different time.
So, for example, meal timescan be challenging for residents because cognitively there's
a lot going on to remember toyou know, hold up your fork and
chew and swallow, and for someonethat to mention that can be difficult knock
(20:02):
on wood that hasn't happened yet,but that might be an example if we
get a resident who's getting triggered easilyor agitated easily during meal time. So
who just ask families to come beforeor after that? All right? For
context from my next question, I'vehad a few CEOs that actually work with
their spouse, which means they seeeach other a lot, and at one
(20:25):
time in radio, I've been inthe same building as my wife and it's
become quite comical. She's on thesales side, I'm on the programing side.
You can just start the comedy reelthere from butting heads. So with
all that said, you've been withyour wife for a long time, but
you also run a business. There'sa lot of CEOs out there that are
couples that might want to start asmall or medium sized business. And I
(20:45):
know that you and I are smilingright now as we're on camera on teams
right now. But with all thatsaid, advice and also what it's like
to work on a business with aspouse in season as often as you do,
I would say my first piece ofadvice is marry the right person.
Good advice, which I was luckyenough to wait, Wait, is crack
the case everybody that's great based sold. And also i'd say, in our
(21:10):
situation, my wife and I arebasically polar opposites. We compliment each other
very well. I'm going to embarrassher. She's very shy. The idea
of doing a radio interview would bemore mortifying to her, whereas I quite
enjoy talking to people. I'm veryoutgoing and she's very detail oriented. She's
great with paperwork. When she wasin Korea, she actually used to run
(21:33):
clinical drug trials for these big pharmaceuticalcompanies, so she's so I guess we
really do compliment each other because thethings that she hates doing, like you
know, going out and meeting newpeople and being very open and extroverted,
are the things she would gladly passon to me. And then you know,
I, by necessity as an administrator, there is a lot of paperwork
(21:57):
involved, but it's always it's goodhaving her look over my shoulder to make
sure all the teaser crossing the eyesor dotted as well. So we actually
compliment each other pretty well. Well, that's great. And if I'm going
to read between the lines, ofway. Just what he said, and
my wife talk about this all thetime. Divide and conquer everybody. Go
with your strengths. That's really key. That's really key. Well, wait,
(22:18):
as we wrap up our conversation,and I can't tell you how much
I appreciate your time with your wife. Do where your team does. Maybe
if you could give our listener justone more takeaway that you want them to
leave with when it comes to Tildenmemory care, yes, I would say.
Well, first of all, ifif you have a loved one that
is experiencing dementia, my heart goesout to you. It's never easy,
(22:41):
but I want you to know thereis help out there. Please seek out
resources, look at options. Youknow you can always call us, even
if you know we're not a goodfit. We like to help people anyway.
But always know that this, youknow, there's still is joy.
Just because someone has a dimension diagnosisdoesn't mean their life is over. There's
(23:04):
still plenty of time to you know, treasure these memories and then spend time
with your loved ones. So don'ttake you know, I don't want people
to be too discouraged because there's stilla lot of laughter and days of joy
left ahead. So it's not allglouom and doom. But like I said,
(23:25):
take advantage of the resources out there. There is a lot out there
that and a lot of good peoplewith good hearts that are that can be
very helpful, very good. Allright, let's do this, So let's
everybody know exactly what city are locatedin a phone number, and let's give
that website one more time. Sure, so we are in Alexandria, Virginia.
That's the Fairfax County side of it. So we're very close to a
(23:47):
Nova Mount Verdon Hospital if people arefamiliar with that. So our phone number
is seven oh three, eight toeight, seven seven to one, and
that goes to me directly, andthen you can also reach us on the
web at www dot Tildenmemorycare dot comand Tilden again is TI L. D.
N Wade. I started off ourconversation by thanking you for what you
(24:11):
do, you guys, your wife, your team, your angels, because
this is hard work and it's notpretty, but families need people like you
to take care of their loved oneswhen they're going through a very difficult time.
And folks, if you've looked atthe statistics out there. It's just
going to get much much worse outthere, so you have to prepare,
unfortunately to kind of do this.But with good people like Wade, his
(24:34):
wife and this team will take goodcare of you so well. Thank you
so much for your time. Continuesuccess, and we so appreciate you joining
us on CEOs. You should know, thank you so much. I'm really
grateful for this opportunity. Thank you. Our community partner, M and T
Bank supports CEOs, you should know. Is part of their ongoing commitment to
building strong communities, and that startsby backing the businesses within them. As
(24:57):
a bank for communities, M andT believes in dedicating time, talent,
and resources to help local businesses thrive, because when businesses succeed, our communities succeed
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