Kelly Mazza – 2012 Community Leadership Award Winner

ALFA announced May 16th, 2012 that Kelly Mazza, senior executive director of The Arbors at Shelburne, a senior living community in Shelburne, VT., was honored with the ALFA 2012 Senior Living Community Leadership Award.  Mazza was recognized at a ceremony at COMMUNITY 2012, the ALFA Conference and Expo.

“Thousands of executive directors lead senior living communities each day with both their heads and hearts,” said Richard P. Grimes, president and CEO of ALFA.  “Kelly’s nomination rose to the top due to her outstanding commitment to the community residents, families and staff and to the success of The Arbors as a business.  She is representative of so many senior living executives who balance numerous priorities each day while living core values and leading by example. Kelly is an ideal role model for current and future leaders seeking to grow their engagement in senior living."

Mazza serves as senior executive director at The Arbors of Shelburne, a senior living community located in Shelburne, Vt. and operated by Wellesley, Mass. based Benchmark Senior Living.  The Arbors serves 64 residents living with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia and employs 107 staff members.  Mazza has been leading The Arbors for six years and has served in a variety of roles with Benchmark for seven years.

"It’s an absolute privilege to serve with The Arbors team and make a difference in the lives of the residents and families there,” Mazza commented. “While I’m thrilled to receive the ALFA award, the whole community deserves special recognition, too.  It takes a dedicated team and engaged residents and families to make a community special and allow leadership to shine." 

The executive director is mission critical for operators of senior living communities.  Executive directors are managers of resources and define the tone of a community and its relationships with residents, families and the surrounding neighborhood.  They need to have a diverse skill set, high emotional intelligence, passion, empathy and solid business acumen that exceed what site-specific executives need to have in many other business sectors.

Senior living companies nominated executive directors for the ALFA Senior Living Community Leadership Award by answering a series of questions and articulating the nominee’s contributions to the company, specific community and the senior living business in general.  Nominations were scrubbed of identifying information and then judged by a panel of senior living executives based on the nominee’s executive qualities, relationships with residents, families and staff, embrace of ALFA core principles, business acumen and potential contributions to the future of senior living.   

ALFA recognizes a number of executive directors as part of the ALFA 2012 Circle of Leadership.  Each receive a special certificate of recognition. For more information about these and other ALFA awards, please visit alfa.org/awards.