Julianne Williams takes the term “hands-on” leadership to a whole different level.
On a recent visit to one of Dycora’s 27 facilities, in California, she noticed that a shower room wasn’t quite up to par. Rather than phoning a maintenance worker to spruce up the space, she and COO Sean Foster drove to Home Depot to buy shower curtains and other supplies.
Foster recalls seeing Williams bent over in her business suit, scrubbing and cleaning the room; a therapy leader actually had to come meet with Williams while she finished the work.
She’s also dipped into her personal finances to help if a worker had an error delaying his or her paycheck.
“She always takes time to listen to the frontline employees, knowing that they make up our bottom line,” says Foster. “She’s never been above that.”
Williams, 50, says she is “very emotionally attached” to the company and its collection of facilities, which she has helped run for years. That’s part of why she and Foster made a bid for them when Golden Living decided to sell off its portfolio. “It’d be like leaving your family members,” she says. That attachment is also why she much prefers to be in the field, rather than sitting behind a desk in a corporate office. “I tend to be a more hands-on CEO,” she says.
That also applies to her personal life. Williams lives in the small town of Kingsburg, CA, where she was born, and where her mother and father, older sister, younger brother, and 17-year-old son, Case, all reside. (Her daughter Cassidy, 21, is away at school.) The family of her late husband and high school sweetheart, Alan Vink, also live near the small farm town, which is 30 minutes southeast of Fresno.
Williams, who raised her then 3-year-old and 7-year-old after Vink died in 2005, is no stranger to adversity. Born with a heart defect that required open-heart surgery when she was 5, she briefly developed an interest in psychology. But inspired by her great-grandmother, Serma, an Armenian refugee, Williams eventually made her way into eldercare. She would often visit Serma at a nursing home, seeing problems frequently pop up, whether a bruise, lost dentures or great-grandma wearing someone else’s clothes. “It made a big impression on me,” she says.
Williams landed her first gig as an administrator-in-training with Beverly Enterprises. There, she met her best friend, Julie Whiteside, who lives walking distance away in Kingsburg.
Over the next 20 years, Williams ran a couple of buildings, moving to quality consultant and then regional VP, overseeing 83 facilities in 15 states.
With the company now under a Golden Living banner, wanting all of its executives to move to Plano, TX, Williams decided to depart in 2011, unwilling to uproot her children. After a brief stint as COO with a family-owned operator in Los Angeles, she was lured back as president of Golden Living in 2014.
To relax, Williams visits the beach or shares a bottle of wine with Whiteside, and cooks Armenian food. “That’s where I get peace,” she says. She plays bass guitar and frequently attends country concerts with her sister, making sure to catch James Taylor whenever he’s in town. Williams claims to be something of an introvert, but Foster counters that she is often first on the dance floor at industry events.
With all those passions, Williams says eldercare is what makes her tick, and she still thinks of her great-grandmother on a daily basis. “I hope she’s proud of me.”
Resume
1991
Earns bachelor’s degree from California Polytechnic University
1991
Becomes an administrator with Beverly Enterprises
1996
Earns MPH degree at California State University, Fresno
1999
Becomes quality management advisor for Beverly
2006
Named division president at Golden Living
2011
Starts as COO of Country Villa Health Services in Los Angeles
2014
Becomes president of Golden Living
2016
Co-founds Dycora Transitional Health & Living
2018
Named at-large member of AHCA Board of Governors
From the February 01, 2019 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
