Roger L. Myers, president and CEO of Presbyterian Villages of Michigan (PVM), is the 2023 Award of Honor winner. He will be honored on Monday, November 6, during  the 2023 LeadingAge Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL.

Known as an innovator and a connector of people and ideas, Myers is also a man of boundless enthusiasm and energy. He has led the expansion of PVM from five communities in suburban Detroit three decades ago to more than 30 throughout the state today, covering the full continuum of services. PVM now includes 26 affordable housing and four market-rate housing sites, in addition to five assisted living and two life plan communities.

A Michigan native, Myers gained degrees in public administration, expecting a career in government, only to find himself working as an assistant hospital administrator. His aging services career began later, when he joined United Methodist Retirement Communities (UMRC) as a nursing home administrator.

Not yet hooked on the field, he was briefly recruited back into the hospital sector. “But I realized after going back into acute care, that my real love and passion was in aging services,” Myers says. An executive director job got him back into the nonprofit sector: “That’s when I went to the Michigan Masonic Home, and [that] experience changed my mind forever.”

Expanding the Continuum of Services

Myers moved to PVM as CEO in 1992, right after the organization adopted its current name and committed to expanding. PVM’s steady growth is a hallmark of his tenure. A firm believer in leading with optimism, Myers frames it as having “a perspective, or a lens, of abundance vs. scarcity. You can lead with a focus on the barriers, or you can lead with a focus [that says] we’re going to overcome the barriers, and we can’t be stopped.”

That approach has yielded many accomplishments over three-plus decades.

At a time when other organizations were leaving Detroit, Myers led the expansion of PVM’s presence there. The decision to move into the city began with a suggestion from PVM board member Rev. Dr. Larry Glenn, at an early ‘90s board meeting. Others on the board agreed. “It snowballed,” Myers recalls. Even before the 1997 opening of Bethany Manor, PVM’s first Detroit community, he says, “we were starting on The Village of Brush Park Manor Paradise Valley. In many cases, community groups approached us, and there were some instances where we took the initiative. Twenty years down the road we had gone from having no presence in the city to having more in the city than anywhere else in the state.”

The 10 villages fully or partially owned by the organization in the city now total 700 units, almost one-quarter of PVM’s total units.

Building Partnerships

Partnerships, Myers says, and the ability to create and maintain them, have been critical to PVM’s development.  Without them, “more than 50% of what we were able to do [in Detroit] would not have occurred,” he says. “Other organizations brought everything from reputation to community assets to leadership—and in some cases, access to capital. We were told by foundations that part of the reason they made grants to [our projects] was the partnership.”

The Thome Rivertown Neighborhood is an example of what can be achieved through collaboration: PVM, UMRC (now Brio Senior Living), and Henry Ford Health System partnered to create an innovative complex featuring subsidized older adult apartments, affordable assisted living, two Green Houses, and a community café and center. Eligible residents access services provided by PACE Southeast Michigan, which PVM joined as a partner in 2012.

Myers is leading PVM’s efforts to replicate the Thome Rivertown model of affordable housing and assisted living plus PACE, all on a single campus, with the recent launch of Campaign for the Ages. This senior living concept is notable for the breadth of its offerings and its focus on addressing the needs of poor, largely underserved older adults. Of four designated sites, the first, at McFarlan Villages in Flint, should be completed within 18 months.

Another creative partnership was with the Hartford Memorial Baptist Church Foundation to build the Hartford Village community in Detroit, which includes a combination of market-rate and affordable housing located in a neighborhood designated as a critical anchor of housing. Outside of Detroit, Myers led PVM’s partnership with Michigan Masonic Home to create the rural PACE Central Michigan.

A Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice

Myers says his education in DEI (which PVM calls Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice, or DEIJ) started early in his career as an administrator with UMRC, where “almost 95% of our staff were African American, and at that point in the early 1980s, almost 90% of our residents were white,” he recalls, which motivated him to develop a deeper personal appreciation and understanding of different cultures, different races, and different faiths. “My journey got well down the road there,” he says. Once at PVM, it continued: “It’s been an inspiring and at times humbling experience.”

In 2020, Myers says, he heard from staff that despite statements from the organization about the murder of George Floyd and other communications, PVM was not doing as much as it should have. “To have staff be that candid—to say we’re not doing enough—that was sobering,” Myers adds. He decided to serve as co-chair of PVM’s Diversity and Inclusion Council, believing that the presence of top leadership demonstrates the organization’s full investment in the work by the organization.

Giving Back to Our Field and the Nonprofit Sector

Myers has regularly contributed his time and knowledge to LeadingAge at the state and national level, and to other aging services organizations. One of his favorite LeadingAge activities has been the five years he has volunteered for The Larry Minnix Leadership Academy, first on the selection committee and then as a coach.

“That was truly a joy to be involved with,” Myers says. “Getting to know the Fellows in those classes, I received more out of that experience than I gave, and I felt it was an obligation to provide support, counsel, and guidance to the future leaders of our field.”

Myers has also served as president of LeadingAge Michigan and of the Presbyterian Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, and has served on the board of the Masonic Communities and Services Association.

He also participates in numerous local, state, and national organizations outside of aging services in the wider nonprofit sector–a deliberate decision done “in part to represent PVM, and sharing our story. But equally, or maybe even more so, for us to take away what we can learn from the other organizations. And it doesn’t all have to be about aging. I think a lot of what we might learn will come from different sectors.”