Early in his career, a pastor friend gave David Gehm, president and CEO of Wellspring Lutheran Services, a piece of advice. “How I presented in my leadership was how people would interpret our mission: They’d either see mission through me or not see it through me,” Gehm recalls. “As leaders, we’re always being watched, and that can be a good thing.”

Gehm, the recipient of the 2024 LeadingAge Award of Honor, expands on that by saying, “You have to be present in order to lead. And that’s not just physical presence, but emotional and intellectual presence with people.”

Now in his 30th year as president and CEO of Wellspring, Gehm has long been a presence in the aging services field. He has been active in LeadingAge for years, including serving as board chair (2014-16) and in other board offices, as a coach for the Larry Minnix Leadership Academy, and as a co-chair of the Center for Aging Services Technologies. He now serves on the boards of LeadingAge Michigan (where he is a past chair) and the Michigan Federation for Children and Families.

Finding a Calling

Gehm is known for leading with his heart. Over the years, he has focused on finding opportunities to expand services to new populations, and has dedicated himself to mentoring and inspiring new leaders. Though he began his career as a pharmacist (and still maintains his license), he came to love aging services while doing pharmacy consulting in post-acute care.

“The more I got into that environment, the more I wanted to be in that environment,” he says. “After a couple of years of fighting this inner calling, I made the decision it was time to do something about it, and it was a leap of faith. We [he and wife Elaine] both felt very confident that it was what we wanted, in being people of faith.”

He took a job with one of his pharmacy clients, Presbyterian Villages of Michigan, as an assistant administrator at its Village of Redford community. He joined Lutheran Homes of Michigan (now Wellspring) 18 months later as administrator at one of its nursing homes. Four years later, in 1994, the Lutheran Homes board named him interim CEO, and six months after that, the job was permanent.

Expanding a Mission

Gehm has an expansive vision of who he serves, as a result of his organization’s unique trajectory. Alongside its full continuum of older adult services, Wellspring Lutheran Services also provides child and family services (including foster care and adoption, supportive youth housing, and family preservation) as well as behavioral health services. The most recent addition to its service offerings provides housing and support for adults with lifelong cognitive, mental, and physical challenges.

Wellspring’s profile and willingness to take on new services for new populations is the result of a watershed event for the organization, and Gehm’s career: the 2012 merger of Lutheran Homes of Michigan with Lutheran Child & Family Services of Michigan to form Wellspring Lutheran Services. The two organizations, both founded in the 1890s, “were in synchronous orbit,” Gehm says. “We had the same sponsoring church body, a lot of overlapping donors and other constituents, and the CEO, Robert Miles, and I knew each other well over many years.”

The merger seemed like “the natural thing to do” for the boards and management, Gehm explains. “The mission has always been about service to people, so it wasn’t hard for our board to expand its view of the mission, to say maybe it’s not just about serving older people, maybe it’s about serving families in systems. Because the reality is, when we serve older people, we’re also serving a family.”

Energized by a Commitment to Leadership and Mentorship

“I really get a lot of energy from mentoring young leaders, seeing them grow, and challenging them, as well as teaching and just being there for them,” says Gehm. “I feel like it’s a way to assure that the future of the field is going to be stronger when I leave.”

His philosophy of leadership borrows from many ideas, but, “First and foremost, it’s about recognizing and validating and affirming people. You can talk about leadership theory, but at the end of the day, I often think of Maya Angelou, who said, ‘People won’t remember what you said. They’ll remember how you made them feel.’ That’s the kind of leader I strive to be. I don’t care about org charts, I don’t care about titles. I care about that person sitting across from me who has something significant to offer and maybe hasn’t been put in a place where they can do that. I’ve always known our work isn’t only about serving clients. It’s also about the people who serve our clients.”

Asked what he’s most proud of in his career, Gehm characteristically turns the focus to other people he’s proud of: “We have an administrator who started with us as a CNA, and I’ve watched her progression, and I couldn’t be more proud of her for what she’s done and [how she is] contributing to the mission. I think about some of our frontline workers who persevered through COVID and showed up every day without giving it another thought.”

Even as his responsibilities and projects evolve, the core of his job remains “the incredible people I get to work with,” he says. “When I look back on a career, it won’t be about which ribbons we cut or which buildings we build. It’s going to be about the people’s lives that I got to share.”