Andie Fitzgerald: Chief Operating Officer, Terwilliger Plaza

May 7

As Chief Operating Officer, what are your responsibilities at Terwilliger Plaza?

Within my portfolio, I oversee and support the Health Services Department that includes both of our licensed Assisted Livings, as well as our Ally In-Home Services, the Plaza Health Clinic, Community Social Services, and our Wellness Center.

Also, I oversee and support all of Facilities. This spans Housekeeping, Maintenance, and the resident Member-facing operations of Terwilliger Plaza including Dining, the Deli and catering. Also, Community Life, the department responsible for managing the front desk, drivers, transportation, and many of the services available to our community.

Last we spoke, you had just joined Terwilliger Plaza.

I am now entering my third year, and it has been an incredibly rewarding experience.

What surprises you the most about Terwilliger Plaza?

Every day that I walk the halls and talk to resident Members I continue to be amazed how wonderful and happy they are in this community. To me, it feels like a family. Whether someone is asking me about a recent vacation, or how my puppies are doing, I feel a bond with the people in this community. I have an immense respect for everybody who lives here and love that I have the opportunity to engage with them on a daily basis.

An important factor in my decision to join Terwilliger Plaza was knowing I would interact directly with the community. In previous roles I was too far removed from the people that I wanted to serve and make these decisions for and with.

When you first began you expressed your confidence in Terwilliger Plaza’s capacity to evolve, expand, and advance its reputation as a progressive and innovative senior living community.

Being a single-site nonprofit Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC), one that is led by a representative self-governance board structure allows us to experiment with new initiatives that have a direct impact on our community.

Can you speak to some of these initiatives?

Terwilliger Plaza is now a SAGECare Platinum Credentialed provider, and the only CCRC in Oregon to be recognized with this achievement. SAGECare is part of the country’s largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ+) older adults. Our intention in pursuing SageCare certification was two-fold. We place a lot of emphasis on our employees being open and nondiscriminatory as an organization, while also being supportive of our resident Members who may be in the LGBTQ+ community.

The SAGECare credential shows resident Members who may be in our community that we are a group of well-informed, well-trained staff who welcome all walks of life into the Terwilliger Plaza community, which also reinforces our mission of inclusiveness. The training that we do fosters psychological safety, trust and belonging, which are key foundations for resident Members to feel comfortable in where they live.

Can you also speak to the pocket translator application that many staff now use?

We are so fortunate to live and work in a city with people of diverse backgrounds. However, we have employees whose first language is not English, and from an operations standpoint this presents a language barrier that impedes meaningful engagement between staff and resident Members. For instance, if we had a non-primary English-speaking employee who had a question, we had to track down another employee who was bilingual and have them stop what they were doing to assist in the translation.

It just didn’t feel right. Strengthening our workforce engagement and fostering community have always been priorities so that everyone can contribute and truly feel a part of the Terwilliger Plaza community.

So, we experimented with a translator application, and it was a game changer. The employee has the software on their device and when they speak into the app it automatically translates into the language they select – one of 250+ languages. Then, the resident Member can respond by speaking into the app which translates into the staff member’s native language. It has been very successful, allowing both the employee and the resident Members to have this connection that they never had before.

And soon, Terwilliger Plaza will introduce an advanced translator initiative within its emergency management system.

Building upon the success of the pocket translator app, we are launching an emergency management radio system that has built-in translation. The staff within Environmental Services, maintenance, front desk and security are all individuals that typically carry a radio, and are communicating all day, every day. If there is an emergency, or a need for an urgent response, they are on the radio. However, if they were only able to rely on the pocket translator, the person would have to get out their device and hold it to the radio. We needed to find a more efficient approach better suited for rapid response.

This new emergency management radio system allows us to program individual radios to support the native language of the user. For example, if you are a predominately Spanish speaking employee, your particular radio would be programmed to receive everything in Spanish. If they send me a message over the radio, I receive the message in English, and when I respond in English, this employee is getting a real-time response, in Spanish. This allows us to stay on top of things very quickly, without delay or error.

These devices also record conversations so they can provide transcripts for future training opportunities. It has a GPS like location feature if we are trying to locate an employee, and the system can be synced with your computer. If there is an emergency, it will alert my computer that someone may be trying to get in touch with me. And it acts like a cell phone, where I can request my radio to call a specific person and it will connect me with this person on a unique channel.

It’s a major upgrade to our current radio system that ties into our emergency management system and elevates the efficiency and sophistication of our operations. I believe we are the only CCRC in Oregon using these translation initiatives.

These are not stand-alone projects.

Collectively, they are structural investments in our long-term viability and mission fulfillment overall. Fostering a supportive community and recognizing the individual is so important and a unique value here at Terwilliger Plaza. We are empowering our staff by providing tools and training to excel in their jobs, while also removing barriers that may limit one’s ability to engage with their coworkers and the resident Members.

Strategically investing in capital improvements to maintain our assets and campus is an ongoing priority for Terwilliger Plaza.

We are in the midst of The Tower Project, which includes a redesign of the lobby, upgrades to the dining room and deli, and a voluntary seismic upgrade to the building. Once completed, there will be several places for resident Members to dine. The new dining room will be a destination with restaurant quality food, and impeccable service within a welcoming environment to enjoy a cocktail or dinner with a neighbor or family and friends. The Parkview Sky Lounge will also be a place where you can have Happy Hour and some lite bites. And resident Members will always have the Deli with new hot item and entrée selections, or fresh breakfast sandwiches and fruit.

While Terwilliger Plaza does not have a mandatory meal plan, it’s so important for resident Members to have dining options. We have a new Director of Dining Services who came to us from Nike, where he was Director of Dining Services and brings a wealth of experience. We also have a new Executive Chef, who relocated here from California where he was the Executive Chef at a large CCRC. And with the input of a dining advisory committee, we’re growing the menu. We are excited for the future of Dining Services, creating opportunities to welcome our resident Members into these enhanced experiences.

There is an intentional focus on fostering a culture at Terwilliger Plaza to support community.

When we ask staff about their experience at Terwilliger Plaza the number one response is that they love the resident Members. The relationship with the resident Members is always going to come first and foremost. The second most frequent response is that they value the work and the organization and recognize that Terwilliger Plaza values them.

The Terwilliger Plaza Foundation contributes to these programs and initiatives.

Both translation programs, the pocket app and emergency management radio system were supported by grants from the Foundation. They do amazing things for the community from grants to Terwilliger Plaza in support of capital projects and equipment, scholarships for employees and their families, contributions to the Lesta Hoel Memorial Trust, and the annual Employee Appreciation Fund. Funded by resident Members, the Terwilliger Plaza Foundation is one of many ways in which this community stands apart from any senior living community I have worked in.

This mutual respect and support seem a natural outgrowth of Terwilliger’s Plaza’s independence as a stand-alone community, led by a representative self-governance leadership structure.

It’s so valuable to work alongside the Board Members and other committee members to have discussions and hear perspectives. My daily interactions with resident Members inform me on so many different levels. We are walking the line together to bring forth ideas on how to better our community, collaboratively. It’s important that Terwilliger Plaza not only be a great place to work for our staff, but also the best place to live for our resident Members. We want people to feel excited and proud of Terwilliger Plaza on all levels.

That, to me – is embracing community.

Think Joule