Life in balance Nothing stopped Elant’s CEO from growing company

Life in balance
Nothing stopped Elant’s CEO from growing company
By KATHY KAHN

Donna McAleer never had much time to read labels on the backs of food items as she shopped for her family.

As the chief executive officer of Elant, she read stacks of reports that crossed her desk each day. She built the company from a single nursing home in 1985 to the largest provider of senior services in New York state.

Constantly on the go, she kept fit and watched what she ate. She felt like she was 30 years old again.

But then came a call from her doctor’s office -- ironically on April Fool’s Day 2005 -- asking her to come in for a second mammogram. The diagnosis would be cancer. Life suddenly went out of balance.

Others might have given up; but, she said, “It has changed my life for the better. It made me appreciate things I never appreciated before. A friend gave me a tiny plaque that says ‘Believe,’ which I keep on my desk at home … and I have truly learned to do that.

McAleer’s illness didn’t get in the way of running the $120 million, 700-employee organization. Crediting the advances in the treatment of breast cancer, McAleer said she barely missed a beat when it came to handling her job and getting needed treatment.

“The advances in medicine today are amazing,” McAleer said, “and I took advantage of every medical protocol out there … the newest treatments available. I became aggressive about my diet and kept up my exercise regimen … I truly believe it has helped me beat this disease.”

Late last year, Elant added two new facilities in Fishkill and Wappingers Falls that include a home-care agency component. McAleer said they were a good fit for Elant’s nonprofit mission.

“That’s an important part of the process. We want to go into a situation where the current owners have the same core values that we do and then we build on them. We have many approaching us asking us to buy them but it has to be the right fit for what we are trying to bring to our senior community.”

Elant is in discussions to buy the Arden Hill campus of Orange Regional Medical Center. “Right now, we lease part of the land we are on from them. If we buy the hospital, we will own all 102 acres.”

What role the hospital purchase would play in Elant’s organization has not yet been determined. “We’re certainly taking a serious look at it.”

Further up the hill from McAleer’s Goshen office, a new 66-unit senior housing condominium community is being built next door to Glen Arden. That’s been keeping McAleer busy, and she’s hoping to have the first model ready for the public by mid-March.

McAleer said the Hudson Valley’s over-60 population is nearly twice the national average. As a result, more and more services will be needed as the baby boomers age out and require extra help in managing their daily lives. She’d like to expand the foster grandparent program currently in place in their new Dutchess County facility, where a senior is paired with a family that can provide daily care.

“It’s like adopting a grandparent,” says McAleer. “I think more and more of these home-based programs are going to be asked for, and we must prepare to deliver this to our clients. It’s natural for people to want to stay in their own home as long as they can…even when they know they can’t, it can be a battle for their families to convince them it’s time to give up the house they can no longer care for.”

As for McAleer’s fight with cancer, the human element seems to have been the elixir of life. Family, friends and co-workers outpouring love and support got her through the dark days. But the greatest boost to her recovery was the end of her “commuter marriage” and the full-time return of her husband of 22 years.

“We were both hard at work doing what we wanted to do. … Gordon was CEO of a hospital in Pennsylvania for nine years … but when I got sick, he said it was time for us to stop living two separate lives in two different states … and his being here every day has made a world of difference to me. My daughter told me, ‘Mom, you only have one choice that’s to stay alive.’ When your kids look at you and say that, you know you don’t want to die.”

Now, back to that label reading. McAleer said, since being diagnosed in 2005, she heeded nutritionists’ advice to eliminate all salt, sugar and chemical additives from her diet.

“I don’t miss any of them,” said McAleer, “not even sugar. It’s amazing how good things can taste once you take all that ‘stuff’ out of them … and when you realize the harm they can do to you, it makes you want to avoid them all the more.”

She’s put herself on a strict organic diet, one she feels has helped her rebound from the chemotherapy and radiation treatments she’d undergone during her battle with cancer.

McAleer is planning a regional eldercare summit on May 11 at the Abigail Kirsch Tappan Hill Mansion in Tarrytown. Offices for the Aging from all over the mid-Hudson Valley and eldercare providers from Katonah to Kingston will take part in the all-day event. McAleer says the purpose of the summit is to bring industry leaders together to see how they can best work to serve the growing senior population of the Hudson Valley.

For McAleer, planning for the upcoming summit is just one of the many projects she’s been keeping busy with, as well as taking care of her health.

Like the organization she’s led for more than 20 years, McAleer is striving to keep life in balance.

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