Imagine if you had the chance to ask President Obama anything you wanted. Rhode Island nursing home operator Angelo Rotella did, and loved every second. 

Rotella, who owns and operates Berkshire Place and Friendly Home, got the chance to talk briefly with the president on Monday at the Rhode Island Convention Center. (Obama came to the state in a last-minute push to help Democratic candidates there. It was no coincidence that his visit followed gubernatorial candidate Frank Caprio publicly chastising Obama for not endorsing him.)

Rotella, a former board chair of the American Health Care Association, was one of 10 guests of good friend Rep. James Langevin (D). Obama agreed to meet the group prior to a rally at the center. Langevin introduced each guest to the president individually in a private room. Then Obama gave each of the guests a couple of minutes of his time.

So what did Rotella do with his two minutes? He reminded the president the extent to which the nursing home business is an economic engine for the country, how many people it employs and how it can solve the employment problem.

“We’re frequently looked at as a cost when we’re actually a value,” Rotella told me, recounting his experience.

So what did the president say?

“We appreciate everything you do,” Rotella recalled.

‘A regular guy’

Rotella, who said he leans Democratic, was thrilled to have had the chance to meet this powerful figure. It’s evident upon talking to Rotella he was more than taken with the president.

“He was extraordinarily sincere to everyone,” Rotella said.

It was remarkable to stand next to someone of Obama’s stature, but Obama didn’t seem like the leader of the Western world, Rotella said.

“He certainly seems like a regular guy,” Rotella said. He was “the type of guy you could talk baseball and play basketball with, the guy you can sit down and smoke a cigar with and have a great conversation about really almost anything.”

While Obama has been criticized for being aloof and elite, Rotella didn’t notice any of these characteristics.

He was “very down to earth, very welcoming, almost looking for someone to talk to him and be part of what he’s all about,” Rotella said, adding “I’m not that easily impressed.”

One other characteristic he noticed?

“I saw him at the Democratic Convention in Boston and he had a lot less gray hair then,” Rotella said.

Spreading the message

The experience of meeting Obama has made Rotella more convinced about the need for long-term care providers to speak to members of Congress about issues of importance to the field. While he was waiting to talk to the president, Rotella thought about how many people ask things of the president each day.

“The only way you you’re going to be successful is if you make your situation be more important than the other 1,000 [people],” he said.

If nursing homes can continue to tell their story, “I think this is an idea he will embrace,” Rotella said. “He wants to help.”

Nursing home residents who are among the nation’s most vulnerable “are certainly the people he wants to help,” Rotella said. “We have to help him figure out how he can do that.”

Rotella’s visit, no doubt, was a good starting point.