Environments for Aging - Summer 2020 - 35

TIMOTHY JOHNSON
President and CEO, Frasier (Boulder, Colo.)

imothy Johnson has spent his entire 45-year career in
senior living, developing and managing senior living
communities with a focus on nonprofit organizations. From
the onset, he's held to the belief that he could make a difference by continually responding to the evolving needs of the
senior living field. Currently, that means undertaking nearly
$200 million of enhancements and redevelopment at Frasier,
an independent, not-for-profit, mission-driven senior living
community serving nearly 500 residents, where he took the
helm in 2010. Over the last five years, the self-described
"architect wanna-be" has played a hands-on role transforming the 60-plus-year-old
campus, overseeing the new architectural design for 98 new independent living residences and a new Center for Healthy Aging. In 2013, he helped guide the community
through a tragic flooding that impacted several buildings, including an assisted living and
skilled nursing unit, turning the disaster into an opportunity to look at everything it was
doing on the campus. As an early adopter of sustainability and wellness initiatives in the
field, he pushed for Frasier to become one of the first communities to pursue the WELL Building Standard for its new
independent living apartments.

DESIGN
CHAMPIONS

it was housed in.
The same is true
of sustainability.
The City of Boulder
had already adopted
standards that resulted in
achieving a LEED-basic level just by building in their city. It seemed disingenuous to
take pride in committing to something (like
LEED) for which we had no choice. I became aware of the WELL Building Standard
and set out to learn more about it. Frasier
had embraced the sustainable design
efforts that the community of Boulder was
aggressively supporting. The mantra when I
arrived at Frasier was "We are Boulder." If it
was a pursuit that we embraced, then there
was no option to not pursue WELL. (Frasier
was the first CCRC designed to meet WELL
Building Standards for a residential facility,
when it opened its new Prairies building in
January).

Environments for Aging: You've spent 45 years in
the senior living industry. What's kept you committed to it throughout your career?
In 1975, I graduated from college and moved to a small
town in central California to work at a circa-1900s retirement home, where I also lived. My experience consisted
of living in the "old" part of the community, while working
on the team that was developing a brand-new retirement
community on a hospital campus. At the time, the executive
director was called the "superintendent" and his wife was
the "matron," and resident choice was a novel idea. People were just beginning to realize that perhaps the residents did know something about what they wanted and that we
could learn from them.
That same year, I attended my first industry conference. Of the 500 in attendance,
I recall that most of the attendees were in their second, third, or fourth careers. I
represented a new wave in the industry of those who were focused on the senior living
industry as our only career. I took time off to pursue a master's degree in aging studies
because I wanted to make a difference along with all of my contemporaries. We felt
empowered that we could make resident choice and intentional design take hold in the
industry and I think we have. I haven't looked back since.

VIC MOSS

You've been recognized for being ahead of the curve when it comes to
sustainability and wellness. Why are those initiatives important to you?
Beginning in the 1990s, I was involved with developing a fitness and wellness concept
that resulted in a state-of-the-art fitness center and program at Presbyterian Homes
of Illinois. As a result of my work, I was asked to be on a panel to talk about wellness.
I somehow talked my way through the session, but when it was over, I realized I talked
the talk but did not walk it. From that point on, I committed to myself that wellness
had be an integral part of an organization's DNA. We began the process of embracing
the dimensions of wellness and making the program mean more than just the building

The Prairies, Boulder, Colo.

What's your vision for senior
living in the future?
I'm still convinced that we can change
this world. It continues to be about pursuing communities that offer choice to
the people we serve. Our communities
will not be like the secluded "islands"
of the past but will become hubs for
providing services to seniors, many of
whom live on our campuses, but perhaps, many more who live in the larger
community. EFA
Anne DiNardo is executive editor of
Environments for Aging. She can be reached at
anne.dinardo@emeraldx.com.

For extended interviews with the 2020 EFA
Design Champions, visit EFAmagazine.com.

Summer 2020 * EFAmagazine.com

http://www.EFAmagazine.com http://www.EFAmagazine.com

Environments for Aging - Summer 2020

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