The LeadingAge Awards recipients for 2022 represent the qualities of leadership, innovation, compassion, and dedication to mission of LeadingAge members. This year’s winners will be honored at the LeadingAge Annual Meeting + EXPO in Denver, CO, Oct. 16-19.

Award of Honor

James Bernardo, president and CEO of Presbyterian Senior Living, will receive the LeadingAge Award of Honor. Coming out of a social work background, Bernardo’s long career in aging services has been marked by exceptional team-building and leadership development; a lifelong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion; promotion of technology—from data analytics to robotics—in aging services; and leadership of the aging services field at both the state and national levels.

Read more about James Bernardo.

Joan Anne McHugh Award for Leadership in LTSS Nursing

Andrea MacDonald, RN, BSN, is the winner of the 16th Annual Joan Anne McHugh Award for Leadership in Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS) Nursing. MacDonald, the clinical operations manager for Nascentia Health Home Health Aides, oversees a team of 13 registered nurses and office staff and more than 120 home health aides. Her love of being with people makes her a natural leader whose devotion to the well-being of staff has helped her build an engaged and supported staff—and come up with creative solutions to the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read more about Andrea MacDonald.

RWJF Award for Health Equity

Rhonda Breland-Gil is the winner of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWFJ) Award for Health Equity.

Breland-Gil, a grants manager at Foundation of Wesley Woods, part of Wesley Woods Senior Living, is honored for her success in raising funds to provide psychotherapy services to extremely low-income residents of a Wesley affordable housing community. The services allow the residents, almost all of them African American or members of another minority group, to get free help in dealing with unaddressed behavioral health issues.

Read more about Rhonda Breland-Gil.