Former CEO Laguna Woods looks back on a three-year term – Orange County Register

When Jeff Parker took the helm of Laguna Woods Village Management Services as its CEO three years ago, he did not work directly with seniors or lead a senior community.

Instead, he gained extensive experience in a city management role – with Tustin, where he held the position for seven years, and before that with Claremont and Walnut.

“The cities I have worked with have strong seniority programs that I have had the opportunity to observe as a city manager,” Parker said in a recent interview.

At the end of his tenure at Tustin, he considered retiring briefly but felt he was still young, and beyond that, fate had other plans.

“When a friend, a recruiter for Laguna Woods Village, approached me about opening here as general manager, I decided to apply for the job,” he recalls.

On February 3, Parker’s term at the Village ended and he was succeeded by Siobhan Foster, the former chief executive officer of VMS.

At age 65, Parker has retired from a job he says he truly loves but also one that presents many challenges, most notably the emergence of COVID-19 and its effects. for life in the Village.

Of course, there are other challenges.

“My first challenge was getting comfortable working with different Village councils,” says Parker. “The other is trying to develop good teamwork – the departments are very separate from each other.”

Now, he counts his proudest achievements when uniting management teams.

Also among his accomplishments, Parker talks about keeping the Ayres Hotel from being turned into a temporary shelter for homeless COVID-19 patients early in the pandemic, a county plan that has attracted opposition from the inhabitants of the village.

“I am delighted that we were able to establish a dialogue with the Ayres Hotel,” he said. “This area with so many seniors with different abilities and capacities is not a good area to be a shelter.”

He emphasized that his efforts are not motivated by aversion to the homeless but by the elderly community. “It’s a big win for us,” he said.

Most obviously, Parker pointed to the establishment of a makeshift vaccination room at Clubhouse 7 early last year to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine to people in the Village.

“It was a very successful team effort between VMS, Saddleback and OCHCA (Orange County Health Care Authority). “The COVID threat could be much more serious; we got in trouble. “

Parker also cited efforts to keep VMS employees safe from the virus, particularly jobs that require them to enter residents’ homes and coordinate staff to work from home.

“It has been a learning curve to provide Resident Services and retain staff, but we have created a safer environment,” he said.

So what’s next for Parker?

He said at some point he wanted to be a training coach, which is meant to be a mentor/life coach for transformation professionals.

But first he plans to relax and then this year will travel through Europe with his fiancée.

“I really like it here,” he said. “Now it’s time to retire.”