June 3, 2024 • 17 mins
E. Douglas Beach, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Western Reserve Area Agency on Aging (WRAAA), has empirical leadership experience and expertise at the federal, state, and local levels. Having spent much of his childhood on family farms, it quite naturally followed Dr. Beach would pursue a doctorate in agricultural economics. Engaged in this pursuit at North Carolina State University, Dr. Beach found it necessary to return to Ohio to care for his ailing father. This circumstance led him to an awareness and interest in a different national resource: the senior population.
Dr. Beach began a career advocating for elders while serving as the Ohio Department of Aging's Deputy Director of Programs, and after many years at the Department of Aging, Congressman David L. Hobson (R-OH) asked Dr. Beach to come on board as a staff economist. Utilizing his assured background in education and economics, Dr. Beach drafted major long-term care insurance legislation working for Congressman Hobson; it was then that Dr. Beach's desire to promote and defend the needs of seniors was revitalized.
In September 1999, Dr. Beach was named the CEO of the Senior Resource Alliance, Florida's most prominent and industrious area agency on aging. Under his leadership, the Orlando-based organization's budget rose from $16 million to $25 million. Soon after, the Senior Resource Alliance became Florida's first Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) and was honored as one of the nation's top 10 Information & Referral systems.
February 2007 brought a knock on the door from Governor Charlie Crist tapping Dr. Beach to be Secretary of the Florida Department of Elder Affairs. Although rough economic times ensued, the Department's budget matched in equal measure to meet the needs of Florida's seniors with the preponderance of funding allocated for senior community and healthcare needs.
One of the premier aging providers in the State of Florida, the Council on Aging of Volusia County (COA) welcomed Dr. Beach as its new Executive Director in June 2010. The COA provided traditional Older Americans Act (OAA) services but also emphasized private pay services and in-home Medicare services.
In October 2014, Dr. Beach became Chief Executive Officer of WRAAA. With his blend of skills, business acumen, and respect for older adults and individuals with disabilities, Dr. Beach continues to provide comprehensive leadership and panoptic guidance to future opportunities and anticipated challenges. Over the past decade, Dr. Beach has transformed an agency on the edge into the largest minority-dominated Area Agency on Aging in the State of Ohio.
Dr. Beach began a career advocating for elders while serving as the Ohio Department of Aging's Deputy Director of Programs, and after many years at the Department of Aging, Congressman David L. Hobson (R-OH) asked Dr. Beach to come on board as a staff economist. Utilizing his assured background in education and economics, Dr. Beach drafted major long-term care insurance legislation working for Congressman Hobson; it was then that Dr. Beach's desire to promote and defend the needs of seniors was revitalized.
In September 1999, Dr. Beach was named the CEO of the Senior Resource Alliance, Florida's most prominent and industrious area agency on aging. Under his leadership, the Orlando-based organization's budget rose from $16 million to $25 million. Soon after, the Senior Resource Alliance became Florida's first Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) and was honored as one of the nation's top 10 Information & Referral systems.
February 2007 brought a knock on the door from Governor Charlie Crist tapping Dr. Beach to be Secretary of the Florida Department of Elder Affairs. Although rough economic times ensued, the Department's budget matched in equal measure to meet the needs of Florida's seniors with the preponderance of funding allocated for senior community and healthcare needs.
One of the premier aging providers in the State of Florida, the Council on Aging of Volusia County (COA) welcomed Dr. Beach as its new Executive Director in June 2010. The COA provided traditional Older Americans Act (OAA) services but also emphasized private pay services and in-home Medicare services.
In October 2014, Dr. Beach became Chief Executive Officer of WRAAA. With his blend of skills, business acumen, and respect for older adults and individuals with disabilities, Dr. Beach continues to provide comprehensive leadership and panoptic guidance to future opportunities and anticipated challenges. Over the past decade, Dr. Beach has transformed an agency on the edge into the largest minority-dominated Area Agency on Aging in the State of Ohio.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
This is iHeartRadio's CEOs. You shouldknow I'm Keith Hotchkinson. Today we're talking
about a topic everyone can relate to. It's called getting older and whether it's
you, your parents, are lovedones, everyone has to adapt to a
changing world as they age. InOhio, there's an amazing agency doing something
to help everyone as they age.And we sat down with doctor Doug Beach,
(00:23):
CEO of the Western Reserve Area Agencyon Aging about what they're doing to
help our growing aging population. So, as I'm looking at your website,
doctor Beach, Western Reserve, Okay, it's got to be done, all
right. As I look at yourwebsite, Doug, you have an incredible
array of services and programs that supportan aging population, which is both the
(00:47):
United States and Cleveland is dealing witha lot. Can you talk a little
bit about what your agency does andhow you advocate for seniors and the people
that have to care for them.Can I give you a story? Love
to hear? Okay? So thestory is Mike Introduction Aging. I'm from
a little place called Johnstown, whichis right outside of Columbus, close to
Jesston University, and when we weregrowing up, we went down to sing
(01:12):
at the Old People's Home in LincolnCounty, Ohio. So think about this
brick building that was probably fifty feetwide by one hundred feet long, three
stories. All of the windows wereboarded up. So we go in there,
and we're young kids would go inthe basement. It's dark, it's
(01:33):
dank, and the seniors are tryingto touch us. Well, that's a
pretty scary thing for a ten ortwelve year old. But if you remember
back in the sixties, fifties andsixties, if you didn't have family would
take care of you, and youdidn't have enough money to take care of
yourself, you went to an oldpeople's home. The Old People's Home in
(01:53):
Lincoln County, Ohio was a workingfarm, and if you didn't couldn't work
for your living, you went tobed to die. So what happened was
the Great Society programs of the Kennedyand Johnson administration, Medicaid pace for long
term care both in facility and inhome. Now, Medicare is probably the
best healthcare program of its type inthe world. And then you have the
(02:14):
Older Americans Act, And the OlderAmericans Act involves meals on wheels, it
involves social determinants. It involves allthese things that tried to keep people young.
So we extend the period of timethey're well, decrease the period of
time that they're sick. And that'swhat we do in Cleveland. That's you
know, we used to work withHeraldo Rivera, and you might remember his
(02:36):
expose on a mentally challenged home inthe New York's in the sixties. And
it does appear that in the fiftiesand sixties we didn't really treat our elderly
and our mentally disabled people very well, did we? Oh? Yes and
no. If you look back then, you had New York City, particularly,
(02:57):
you had rowhouses, three generations inthe same row house, right right,
and so you had grandpa and grandmahelping kids and grandkids get through whatever
they had. And for whatever reason, we've gotten away from that, right,
So we don't have that help thatwe used to have. And people
are moving out. You know,my youngest still lives in Florida. The
(03:20):
oldest one is here, thank god. But we don't have families that are
living close to each other, multigenerational in the US. That kind we
did get away from that, right, You had to quote establish yourself on
your own right, right. So, but this is a really big issue
in both Cleveland and the United States. Is because of medical advancements and the
Great Society programs, we're living longer. And you're right, Luckily there are
(03:44):
people that have family who are therefor them, who can advocate, who
can afford, but there are unfortunatelylots of folks that don't have that,
and who's going to take care ofthem? I imagine that's what your agency
special We do a lot of it, a lot of great partners in town.
Our budget is fairly substantial. We'rethe seventh largest nonprofit in the Greater
(04:09):
Cleveland area and that's there's like somethinglike seventy thousand nonprofits right astered in the
area, so that's pretty substantial.It's a ninety million dollar budget our meals
programs. We think if we canfeed people, that's the first step,
and we also think that if wecan go ahead and fight social isolation,
that's the second step. So we'rereally really zoned in on working with our
(04:30):
partners to make that happen. Rightthat we're hearing a lot about the loneliness
epidemic, especially since the pandemic,and you know how, I imagine again,
for the elderly that have not hadfamily and have not been able to
meet people the last few years.I believe that's a tragedy that you're trying
to help avoid. Right, howdo you help that? How do you
help people? Well, I willtell you the pandemic, we didn't do
(04:54):
it very well. My mom washaving issues and she was in a a
facility and we could call her,but we could only see her twice week.
And you talk about a woman whowas very, very social, yeah,
and so I you know, withina nine month period she died and
(05:15):
most of that was because she starvedherself to death because she didn't have the
interactions she needs. So that wholeidea of warehousing people was not a good
one, right do you How doyou what shoes your agency do to specifically
some of the things you do tohelp prevent that and avoid the social isolation,
(05:36):
bring people together, you know,help them with different housing options.
Right. Well, it's a maturation, you know, if you look at
what was going on in the sixtiesand seventies and even eighties, eighty five
percent of the people who were eligiblefor nursing homes were in nursing homes and
now it's sixty seven percent actually intheir own home and the other twenty thirty
(06:00):
percent in nursing home. So we'vebeen able to change that dynamic from a
nursing home concentration to an in homeconcentration so people can be where they've been
and want to be for a longerperiod of time. But and I might
ask the question not to contradict,because you're in your own home, it's
more likely you are isolated, right, because you're not in a community per
se. Right, that's where westep in. Okay, good. So
(06:24):
we have programs for seniors, wehave meals programs, We have people that
go in and help folks bathe helpfolks get dressed, help folks get out
of bed. We have nurses andsocial workers that go in and check on
the medical conditions. So we're inthe house depending upon the condition, regularly
(06:45):
for a long period of time.We're talking with doctor Doug Beach, CEO
of the Western Reserve Area Agency onAging here in Cleveland. That the seventh
largest nonprofit in Cleveland, Ohio thatvacillates a little bit. Last time I
looked at it was but who wascounting? Right? Thank you? When
you think about it, Doug,You've got an incredibly important job here.
(07:06):
You're taking care of the people thathave taken care of others for most of
their lives, right, and nowyou've got folks my age whose parents are
getting into their seventies and eighties,and who you know, fortunately haven't had
to thought think much about this.My parents are still in the home that
I grew up in, right,and they're fairly healthy. But at some
point that's not going to be thecase. What is someone like me in
(07:29):
my forties and fifties, who's balancingkids in our own careers do to help
our aging parents? And as weage, how do we get a hold
of you guys? What do wewhat signs we should look for? What
do we do? Having recently beenthere, I would tell you the first
thing you do is you get yourkids at your house. Well, they're
ten and eight. It might bea little while. We got a while,
yeah, but I would tell youplanning is important. We've written some
(07:57):
major legislation that allows seniors to guardsome of their assets if they buy certain
types of long term care policies,and so I encourage people to work with
their investment advisor on what those programslook like and how they could help them.
The idea of understanding that sometime oranother, your parents may very well
(08:20):
need your help, both financially,physically, and from a mental health perspective,
plan for that. You have tohave a plan for that. And
then, by and large, whatwe encourage people to do, particularly families
enjoy, is to enjoy each otherand make sure that those relationships are solid
(08:43):
relationships over a long period of time. Isn't that the simplest answer outcomes,
Razor. Just make sure you tryand stay in touch with each other and
enjoy each other a little bit longer, and sometimes that alone can make a
big difference, right, Right.So I grew up on a farm,
and it was always interesting when yougot to work with Grandpa, because you
(09:03):
know, if you screwed something up, he'd fix it. He'd tell you
what you did wrong, and itwas a pretty good day. If you
had to work with Dad, hewas going to chew on you all day.
And so it was this whole behaviorof grandparents that for whatever reason,
they seemed to understand it. SoI was doing something one of my great
(09:24):
kids the other day, and myson looks at me and says, who
are you. Yeah, grandparents getthe all the spoils. They get to
spoil the kids, that is forsure, the grandkids. So we're talking
about advocacy. Some of the thingsyou do in terms of helping them with
Alzheimer's nutrition programs you mentioned, youknow, if you feed them first,
(09:46):
a lot of that takes care ofitself. There's new diseases coming out,
there's challenges people have with losing relativesto COVID, plus technology challenges. Right.
The fact that you can't even goto a guardian's game without having a
cell phone, right, probably drivesolder folks crazy in some cases, right,
me too, Yeah, but youprobably help with some of those things
stuff you don't think about every day, right, getting on the computer and
(10:07):
those kind of things. Right,is that stuff that you guys would do
and help coordinate. We have threehundred and fifty employees. Yeah, and
everybody has their own laptop, andeverybody's turning their laptops over about every three
to five years, and so wegive those give them out, we try
to refurbish them, given the seniors, senior centers, whatever we can do
and get them out and get people. But you know, some of the
(10:28):
issues we have with Wi Fi incertain areas of Cleveland. Is is very
very difficult. We applaud what themayor and the council are doing on trying
to alleviate those problems, right,but they're especially problems for seniors. Yeah,
well, I mean that there's theinternet's utility now you really can't exist
in most of life without it.So tell me a little bit more anything
(10:50):
we might not think about in termsof the aging population, things that we
need to learn about, things thatyou're doing in you know, the high
legislature to advocate for seniors. Canyou talk to us just a little bit
about some of the areas that maybeunder the radar but are really important as
the population ages, and what youragency does to help well. According to
(11:11):
the Older Americans Act, our primeresponsibility is to be the chief advocate for
seniors in the greater Cleveland area.YEP. And we take that very very
seriously. With that, we havea board of directors that helps guide what
we do on a daily basis.We have another group of folks that come
in and help us with the advocacyposition. We have organizations that we contract
(11:35):
with because we don't do any ofthe direct service. We have people like
Benjamin Row's Catholic Social Services. Wecontract with them and they deliver the services,
so it's not us doing a delivery. So we have a bunch of
partners and everything we do and atthe end of the day, we do
a pretty good job of being ableto What we want to do is increase
(11:58):
the period of time that people arewell and decrease superior time that they're sick.
You know, one of the thingsthat strikes me here is that you've
got three hundred and fifty employees dedicatedto helping the elderly. You might call
them some of the most vulnerable inour society. Right we live in a
cold weather climate. I think aboutthis kind of stuff a lot, and
(12:18):
that's great to know. There's somewhatcomfort in knowing that you know there are
people to take care of you asyou get older, but you have to
make those choices and plan now andthink about it. And that's what Western
Reserve Area Agency on Aging does herein Cleveland. So, Doug, one
of the things we like to doon CEOs you should know is talk about
how folks in positions like yours balanceall the work you're doing, balance having
(12:41):
kids and grandkids, plus this incrediblyimportant work. How do you do it?
I don't, Okay, so mywife does all right? Yeah,
So people ask me about the PhDand I said, she got the degree
I did and all I did wasgo home and study every night. Well,
you have to have done something right. You probably decompressed. Read do
you kind of do you fish?What do you do to keep yourself?
(13:03):
You know from like totally stressing out? I like old movies. There you
go a lot of that. Joelikes old movies, so we do a
lot of that old movie movie stuff. But it is pretty time consuming and
we have a lot of meetings inColumbus. There are a lot of smart
people. Script Gerontology at Miami Universityis one of the best aging organizations in
(13:30):
the United States. And coming backfrom Florida, where I was for fifteen
years, to Ohio, we're doingthings work step ahead good and it's really
hard looking at the number of peopleseniors who are in Florida, but we
are step ahead. Doug when youtalk about the first thing you want to
(13:50):
do is feed someone, which Ithink is noble first step. For sure,
nutrition is important. We heard alot about food waste in this country,
isn't it something like forty to fortyfive percent of the food unfortunately is
thrown out or expired. You havean interesting program that you do to help
make sure that that is at leastmitigated and folks can get meals if food
(14:13):
is about to go bad or ifsomething goes wrong. Right. Can you
talk a little bit about that.We didn't know our potential until somebody came
to us. One of the localdelis freezer went bad and we got two
thousand pounds of chicken. There yougo. At the end of the day,
we were producing these meals with Edwin'sRestaurant and they're great partners. Gordon
(14:37):
Food was part of the partnership aswell, and we were able to get
a meal to folks in some ofthe high rises in the Greater Cleveland several
thousand meals and at the end ofthe day, it was a partnership that
we've looked at in replicated a timeor two. Can you talk a little
bit about the nails A program.Yeah, we got a center share Brown's
(14:58):
been kind to us and we wentwith a proposal on a program called nails
It. And what it essentially isis a program that recognizes the fact that
often seniors who fall would not havefallen had there been a grab bar.
Oh okay, had there been alittle bit more space in the doorways,
(15:18):
had there been a walk in tub. And so what we did with the
Senator was put together a program thatwe go into high rises as well as
individuals' houses and we protect them againstthose falls. Okay, you really surprised
that. I don't have the statisticson the top of my mind right now,
(15:39):
but you would be surprised how manyfatalities start with the fall I would
imagine, right, yeah. Andthe ability for as again as we age
and we live longer, the needto be able to hang on and grab
those grab bars, and especially inbathrooms and coming downstairs, I bet you
was quite critical. And that's anotherarea that you guys help advocate for.
(16:03):
Get the supplies, go into thehomes and just basically install these things for
people that maybe didn't even know thatwas an option for it, and probably
didn't even know they needed it.Well, and as you're listening to this
in Cleveland potentially, but all overthe world, you think about the aging
population of the US as an areathat we all have to start thinking about
it. It means a lot toall of us, even if you're in
(16:25):
your twenties and thirties, you know, planning for your parents and grandparents to
be cared for as the world changes, as technology moves. I think it's
something really important. And if you'rein this position where you yourself are a
senior that could use some assistance interms of housing or advocacy for yourself,
or just someone to talk to theWestern Reserve Area on Aging. Even if
(16:49):
you're technology I guess if you're listeningto this, you're not technologically challenged,
right, but you want to goto the website or call eight hundred and
six two six seven to seven sevenfor the Western Reserve Area Agency on Aging
and Doug, it's been a pleasuretalking with you on CEOs. You should
know today. Glad to meet somebodywho spent some time in North Carolina.
(17:11):
That's right, Thank you, andthis has been iHeartRadio CEOs. You should
know. Today's show was produced byBob Kates and I'm Keith Hotchkiss. We'll
see you next time.
This is iHeartRadio's CEOs. You shouldknow I'm Keith Hotchkinson. Today we're talking
about a topic everyone can relate to. It's called getting older and whether it's
you, your parents, are lovedones, everyone has to adapt to a
changing world as they age. InOhio, there's an amazing agency doing something
to help everyone as they age.And we sat down with doctor Doug Beach,
(00:23):
CEO of the Western Reserve Area Agencyon Aging about what they're doing to
help our growing aging population. So, as I'm looking at your website,
doctor Beach, Western Reserve, Okay, it's got to be done, all
right. As I look at yourwebsite, Doug, you have an incredible
array of services and programs that supportan aging population, which is both the
(00:47):
United States and Cleveland is dealing witha lot. Can you talk a little
bit about what your agency does andhow you advocate for seniors and the people
that have to care for them.Can I give you a story? Love
to hear? Okay? So thestory is Mike Introduction Aging. I'm from
a little place called Johnstown, whichis right outside of Columbus, close to
Jesston University, and when we weregrowing up, we went down to sing
(01:12):
at the Old People's Home in LincolnCounty, Ohio. So think about this
brick building that was probably fifty feetwide by one hundred feet long, three
stories. All of the windows wereboarded up. So we go in there,
and we're young kids would go inthe basement. It's dark, it's
(01:33):
dank, and the seniors are tryingto touch us. Well, that's a
pretty scary thing for a ten ortwelve year old. But if you remember
back in the sixties, fifties andsixties, if you didn't have family would
take care of you, and youdidn't have enough money to take care of
yourself, you went to an oldpeople's home. The Old People's Home in
(01:53):
Lincoln County, Ohio was a workingfarm, and if you didn't couldn't work
for your living, you went tobed to die. So what happened was
the Great Society programs of the Kennedyand Johnson administration, Medicaid pace for long
term care both in facility and inhome. Now, Medicare is probably the
best healthcare program of its type inthe world. And then you have the
(02:14):
Older Americans Act, And the OlderAmericans Act involves meals on wheels, it
involves social determinants. It involves allthese things that tried to keep people young.
So we extend the period of timethey're well, decrease the period of
time that they're sick. And that'swhat we do in Cleveland. That's you
know, we used to work withHeraldo Rivera, and you might remember his
(02:36):
expose on a mentally challenged home inthe New York's in the sixties. And
it does appear that in the fiftiesand sixties we didn't really treat our elderly
and our mentally disabled people very well, did we? Oh? Yes and
no. If you look back then, you had New York City, particularly,
(02:57):
you had rowhouses, three generations inthe same row house, right right,
and so you had grandpa and grandmahelping kids and grandkids get through whatever
they had. And for whatever reason, we've gotten away from that, right,
So we don't have that help thatwe used to have. And people
are moving out. You know,my youngest still lives in Florida. The
(03:20):
oldest one is here, thank god. But we don't have families that are
living close to each other, multigenerational in the US. That kind we
did get away from that, right, You had to quote establish yourself on
your own right, right. So, but this is a really big issue
in both Cleveland and the United States. Is because of medical advancements and the
Great Society programs, we're living longer. And you're right, Luckily there are
(03:44):
people that have family who are therefor them, who can advocate, who
can afford, but there are unfortunatelylots of folks that don't have that,
and who's going to take care ofthem? I imagine that's what your agency
special We do a lot of it, a lot of great partners in town.
Our budget is fairly substantial. We'rethe seventh largest nonprofit in the Greater
(04:09):
Cleveland area and that's there's like somethinglike seventy thousand nonprofits right astered in the
area, so that's pretty substantial.It's a ninety million dollar budget our meals
programs. We think if we canfeed people, that's the first step,
and we also think that if wecan go ahead and fight social isolation,
that's the second step. So we'rereally really zoned in on working with our
(04:30):
partners to make that happen. Rightthat we're hearing a lot about the loneliness
epidemic, especially since the pandemic,and you know how, I imagine again,
for the elderly that have not hadfamily and have not been able to
meet people the last few years.I believe that's a tragedy that you're trying
to help avoid. Right, howdo you help that? How do you
help people? Well, I willtell you the pandemic, we didn't do
(04:54):
it very well. My mom washaving issues and she was in a a
facility and we could call her,but we could only see her twice week.
And you talk about a woman whowas very, very social, yeah,
and so I you know, withina nine month period she died and
(05:15):
most of that was because she starvedherself to death because she didn't have the
interactions she needs. So that wholeidea of warehousing people was not a good
one, right do you How doyou what shoes your agency do to specifically
some of the things you do tohelp prevent that and avoid the social isolation,
(05:36):
bring people together, you know,help them with different housing options.
Right. Well, it's a maturation, you know, if you look at
what was going on in the sixtiesand seventies and even eighties, eighty five
percent of the people who were eligiblefor nursing homes were in nursing homes and
now it's sixty seven percent actually intheir own home and the other twenty thirty
(06:00):
percent in nursing home. So we'vebeen able to change that dynamic from a
nursing home concentration to an in homeconcentration so people can be where they've been
and want to be for a longerperiod of time. But and I might
ask the question not to contradict,because you're in your own home, it's
more likely you are isolated, right, because you're not in a community per
se. Right, that's where westep in. Okay, good. So
(06:24):
we have programs for seniors, wehave meals programs, We have people that
go in and help folks bathe helpfolks get dressed, help folks get out
of bed. We have nurses andsocial workers that go in and check on
the medical conditions. So we're inthe house depending upon the condition, regularly
(06:45):
for a long period of time.We're talking with doctor Doug Beach, CEO
of the Western Reserve Area Agency onAging here in Cleveland. That the seventh
largest nonprofit in Cleveland, Ohio thatvacillates a little bit. Last time I
looked at it was but who wascounting? Right? Thank you? When
you think about it, Doug,You've got an incredibly important job here.
(07:06):
You're taking care of the people thathave taken care of others for most of
their lives, right, and nowyou've got folks my age whose parents are
getting into their seventies and eighties,and who you know, fortunately haven't had
to thought think much about this.My parents are still in the home that
I grew up in, right,and they're fairly healthy. But at some
point that's not going to be thecase. What is someone like me in
(07:29):
my forties and fifties, who's balancingkids in our own careers do to help
our aging parents? And as weage, how do we get a hold
of you guys? What do wewhat signs we should look for? What
do we do? Having recently beenthere, I would tell you the first
thing you do is you get yourkids at your house. Well, they're
ten and eight. It might bea little while. We got a while,
yeah, but I would tell youplanning is important. We've written some
(07:57):
major legislation that allows seniors to guardsome of their assets if they buy certain
types of long term care policies,and so I encourage people to work with
their investment advisor on what those programslook like and how they could help them.
The idea of understanding that sometime oranother, your parents may very well
(08:20):
need your help, both financially,physically, and from a mental health perspective,
plan for that. You have tohave a plan for that. And
then, by and large, whatwe encourage people to do, particularly families
enjoy, is to enjoy each otherand make sure that those relationships are solid
(08:43):
relationships over a long period of time. Isn't that the simplest answer outcomes,
Razor. Just make sure you tryand stay in touch with each other and
enjoy each other a little bit longer, and sometimes that alone can make a
big difference, right, Right.So I grew up on a farm,
and it was always interesting when yougot to work with Grandpa, because you
(09:03):
know, if you screwed something up, he'd fix it. He'd tell you
what you did wrong, and itwas a pretty good day. If you
had to work with Dad, hewas going to chew on you all day.
And so it was this whole behaviorof grandparents that for whatever reason,
they seemed to understand it. SoI was doing something one of my great
(09:24):
kids the other day, and myson looks at me and says, who
are you. Yeah, grandparents getthe all the spoils. They get to
spoil the kids, that is forsure, the grandkids. So we're talking
about advocacy. Some of the thingsyou do in terms of helping them with
Alzheimer's nutrition programs you mentioned, youknow, if you feed them first,
(09:46):
a lot of that takes care ofitself. There's new diseases coming out,
there's challenges people have with losing relativesto COVID, plus technology challenges. Right.
The fact that you can't even goto a guardian's game without having a
cell phone, right, probably drivesolder folks crazy in some cases, right,
me too, Yeah, but youprobably help with some of those things
stuff you don't think about every day, right, getting on the computer and
(10:07):
those kind of things. Right,is that stuff that you guys would do
and help coordinate. We have threehundred and fifty employees. Yeah, and
everybody has their own laptop, andeverybody's turning their laptops over about every three
to five years, and so wegive those give them out, we try
to refurbish them, given the seniors, senior centers, whatever we can do
and get them out and get people. But you know, some of the
(10:28):
issues we have with Wi Fi incertain areas of Cleveland. Is is very
very difficult. We applaud what themayor and the council are doing on trying
to alleviate those problems, right,but they're especially problems for seniors. Yeah,
well, I mean that there's theinternet's utility now you really can't exist
in most of life without it.So tell me a little bit more anything
(10:50):
we might not think about in termsof the aging population, things that we
need to learn about, things thatyou're doing in you know, the high
legislature to advocate for seniors. Canyou talk to us just a little bit
about some of the areas that maybeunder the radar but are really important as
the population ages, and what youragency does to help well. According to
(11:11):
the Older Americans Act, our primeresponsibility is to be the chief advocate for
seniors in the greater Cleveland area.YEP. And we take that very very
seriously. With that, we havea board of directors that helps guide what
we do on a daily basis.We have another group of folks that come
in and help us with the advocacyposition. We have organizations that we contract
(11:35):
with because we don't do any ofthe direct service. We have people like
Benjamin Row's Catholic Social Services. Wecontract with them and they deliver the services,
so it's not us doing a delivery. So we have a bunch of
partners and everything we do and atthe end of the day, we do
a pretty good job of being ableto What we want to do is increase
(11:58):
the period of time that people arewell and decrease superior time that they're sick.
You know, one of the thingsthat strikes me here is that you've
got three hundred and fifty employees dedicatedto helping the elderly. You might call
them some of the most vulnerable inour society. Right we live in a
cold weather climate. I think aboutthis kind of stuff a lot, and
(12:18):
that's great to know. There's somewhatcomfort in knowing that you know there are
people to take care of you asyou get older, but you have to
make those choices and plan now andthink about it. And that's what Western
Reserve Area Agency on Aging does herein Cleveland. So, Doug, one
of the things we like to doon CEOs you should know is talk about
how folks in positions like yours balanceall the work you're doing, balance having
(12:41):
kids and grandkids, plus this incrediblyimportant work. How do you do it?
I don't, Okay, so mywife does all right? Yeah,
So people ask me about the PhDand I said, she got the degree
I did and all I did wasgo home and study every night. Well,
you have to have done something right. You probably decompressed. Read do
you kind of do you fish?What do you do to keep yourself?
(13:03):
You know from like totally stressing out? I like old movies. There you
go a lot of that. Joelikes old movies, so we do a
lot of that old movie movie stuff. But it is pretty time consuming and
we have a lot of meetings inColumbus. There are a lot of smart
people. Script Gerontology at Miami Universityis one of the best aging organizations in
(13:30):
the United States. And coming backfrom Florida, where I was for fifteen
years, to Ohio, we're doingthings work step ahead good and it's really
hard looking at the number of peopleseniors who are in Florida, but we
are step ahead. Doug when youtalk about the first thing you want to
(13:50):
do is feed someone, which Ithink is noble first step. For sure,
nutrition is important. We heard alot about food waste in this country,
isn't it something like forty to fortyfive percent of the food unfortunately is
thrown out or expired. You havean interesting program that you do to help
make sure that that is at leastmitigated and folks can get meals if food
(14:13):
is about to go bad or ifsomething goes wrong. Right. Can you
talk a little bit about that.We didn't know our potential until somebody came
to us. One of the localdelis freezer went bad and we got two
thousand pounds of chicken. There yougo. At the end of the day,
we were producing these meals with Edwin'sRestaurant and they're great partners. Gordon
(14:37):
Food was part of the partnership aswell, and we were able to get
a meal to folks in some ofthe high rises in the Greater Cleveland several
thousand meals and at the end ofthe day, it was a partnership that
we've looked at in replicated a timeor two. Can you talk a little
bit about the nails A program.Yeah, we got a center share Brown's
(14:58):
been kind to us and we wentwith a proposal on a program called nails
It. And what it essentially isis a program that recognizes the fact that
often seniors who fall would not havefallen had there been a grab bar.
Oh okay, had there been alittle bit more space in the doorways,
(15:18):
had there been a walk in tub. And so what we did with the
Senator was put together a program thatwe go into high rises as well as
individuals' houses and we protect them againstthose falls. Okay, you really surprised
that. I don't have the statisticson the top of my mind right now,
(15:39):
but you would be surprised how manyfatalities start with the fall I would
imagine, right, yeah. Andthe ability for as again as we age
and we live longer, the needto be able to hang on and grab
those grab bars, and especially inbathrooms and coming downstairs, I bet you
was quite critical. And that's anotherarea that you guys help advocate for.
(16:03):
Get the supplies, go into thehomes and just basically install these things for
people that maybe didn't even know thatwas an option for it, and probably
didn't even know they needed it.Well, and as you're listening to this
in Cleveland potentially, but all overthe world, you think about the aging
population of the US as an areathat we all have to start thinking about
it. It means a lot toall of us, even if you're in
(16:25):
your twenties and thirties, you know, planning for your parents and grandparents to
be cared for as the world changes, as technology moves. I think it's
something really important. And if you'rein this position where you yourself are a
senior that could use some assistance interms of housing or advocacy for yourself,
or just someone to talk to theWestern Reserve Area on Aging. Even if
(16:49):
you're technology I guess if you're listeningto this, you're not technologically challenged,
right, but you want to goto the website or call eight hundred and
six two six seven to seven sevenfor the Western Reserve Area Agency on Aging
and Doug, it's been a pleasuretalking with you on CEOs. You should
know today. Glad to meet somebodywho spent some time in North Carolina.
(17:11):
That's right, Thank you, andthis has been iHeartRadio CEOs. You should
know. Today's show was produced byBob Kates and I'm Keith Hotchkiss. We'll
see you next time.
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