Senior Services of Snohomish County provides food, housing, transportation and information. With Raymond Crerand now at the agency’s helm, add inspiration to that list.
Crerand could easily spend retirement years at leisure. He retired in 2001 as
chief executive of what’s now Providence Regional Medical Center Everett.
Instead, he is deeply involved as chief executive officer of Senior Services as the nonprofit organization looks ahead to a boom in the area’s over-60 population. It’s an interim position, but it will last through this year.
As many Americans face delayed retirement because of changes in Social Security or economic uncertainty, Crerand’s attitude toward working past 65 is indeed inspiring.
“If your work is something you dislike, you can’t wait to retire,” Crerand said Monday. “I see work as art rather than task. No one said to Picasso at 60, ‘You have to quit painting.’ As you move through the world, there are so many ways to make a contribution.”
Crerand is sharing his valuable experience.
“As a former CEO, he sees the big picture,” said Dave Earling, president of the board of directors for Senior Services of Snohomish County.
In December, the board selected Crerand to take over temporarily for Phil Sullivan, the Senior Services leader who died of cancer last fall. On Thursday, Earling said, the board agreed that Crerand will fill the interim position at least through 2011.
“It isn’t CEO for life,” Crerand quipped. A native of Ireland, he doesn’t share his age but allows that he’s a senior like the agency’s clientele. For now, he makes the daily commute from his Bellevue home.
At the Mukilteo headquarters of Senior Services near Paine Field on Monday, Crerand and Earling talked about what both describe as a senior population “tsunami” on the horizon.
Earling said projections show that by 2020, Snohomish County will be home to 190,000 people age 60 and older. Senior Services of Snohomish County, with a $13 million budget, now serves about 35,000 people per year.
Current programs include Meals on Wheels, dining at area senior centers, minor home repair, 743 affordable housing units and counseling and other social services. The agency publishes the Senior Focus newspaper and annual Senior Source Resource Guides. On top of all that are Dial-A-Ride Transportation and a rural Transportation Assistance Program, both Senior Services programs that provide 250,000 rides a year with 63 wheelchair-accessible vehicles.
Earling said the troubled economy put brakes on a capital campaign planned in 2008. A big part of Crerand’s role, he said, is to refocus on today’s needs and how best to organize the agency’s many efforts.
After Sullivan’s death last fall, the board voted to pursue a capital campaign to raise several million dollars, with a hope of building a facility with a full kitchen. Meals aren’t custom-made at Senior Services, but are assembled from partially processed food, then delivered.
A kitchen is still on the wish list, but Earling said Monday that a new “cabinet” is exploring needs and today’s financial realities before launching a fundraising effort.
“A commercial kitchen is really important going forward,” Crerand said. So, too, are job training and computer programs for today’s seniors.
With his hospital background, Crerand envisions that Senior Services, with its home visits, could someday be “eyes and the ears of the medical profession,” focusing on clients’ nutritional and health issues.
“There was a time when people lost some independence and ended up warehoused. People are going to require a level of service — transportation, nutrition, advice,” he said.
Crerand favors a “minimalist approach” that helps people stay in their homes.
His aim is to see seniors thrive, “with independence, autonomy and dignity.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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