Just as Jerald Cosey’s lengthy pharmaceutical sales career had reached a peak — leading a team of his choosing to sell a new Pfizer medication — he resigned. It was 2013 and the husband and father of three wanted to start a training program to become a skilled nursing home administrator.
“Folks thought I had lost my mind,” said Cosey, now 54.
For Cosey, the career switch was less sudden or surprising. He had always felt at ease with elders. His maternal grandparents raised him on Chicago’s South Side after both of his parents died before he turned 3, his father hit by a car and his mother from natural causes.
After a downsizing left him briefly without a job in 2009, his pastor had encouraged him to volunteer. That’s when he began visiting two nursing home residents every Saturday for simple, shoot-the-
breeze conversations.
Within a couple months, Cosey had a new pharmaceuticals job. He also started a ministry to encourage others, especially children, to visit nursing home residents monthly.
Years later, he was finally drawn to the industry professionally. Cosey had been hospitalized with Crohn’s disease, undergoing three lengthy surgeries. The night before his first surgery, embarrassed after having an accident, a nurse imparted a level of kindness and grace that led him to rethink how he might do something special with the second half of his career.
Cosey landed on serving seniors with the same care this nurse had given him.
Cosey lives by what he calls the three Cs – confront, compete and conquer – by being real about one’s goals and advancing the ball in that regard. To keep making progress, he leaned heavily on the advice of mentors.
“The key is do what they tell you to do,” he says.
David Stordy, former chief operating officer of American Senior Communities and now a vice president and COO of Prestige Healthcare, recognized Cosey’s potential early.
“He’s at his essence, at his core, a servant leader,” Stordy said of Cosey, noting the resilience and empathy he infuses in his leadership. “He really brought those to an even higher level during the pandemic.”
Cosey was working at a 166-bed nursing home for American Senior Communities when he was first thrust into leading a facility amid COVID-19 conditions. Emerging on the other side, he had a new realization: This hadn’t been a career choice but a calling to lead.
Now, he feels compelled to remind his fellow professionals of their worth as he speaks at industry events and in his role as director of operational leadership development for American Senior Communities. His primary goal is to build up nursing home leaders, ensuring quality of service remains paramount, and to minimize the isolation felt by residents and the burnout felt by staff.
“People need to hear from someone who knows what they experience,” he said. “We must go out and rehydrate senior healthcare leaders who have been through so very much.”
Cosey’s Resume
1990 Earns bachelor’s degree from Kentucky State
1993 Becomes sales representative for Philip Morris USA
1996-1999 Named specialty sales rep for Parke-Davis
1999 Becomes district sales manager for Pfizer
2009 Launches Graceful Moments outreach ministry
2009-2013 District sales manager for King Pharmaceuticals (2009-2012) and PDI (2012-2013)
2013 Begins administrator-in-training program with American Senior Communities
2014 Becomes executive director of Bethany Village SNF
2017-2021 Serves as executive director at Greenwood Meadows
2018 Launches J. Cosey Speaks, a national leadership development company and speaking platform
2021 Named director of ASC’s operational leadership development program
2021 Serves as board member of the Indiana Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine and
Brothers of Color in Pharma (BROCIP)
From the December 2022 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
