2013 Master of Leadership Development Graduate Turns Capstone Project into a $2.5 Million, 15,000-Square Feet Assisted Living Facility
By Dianne Frances D. Powell
An idea that would meet a need in her community began to take shape while Lisa Schreiner McCord ’09, ’13G was a graduate student at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College (SMWC) several years ago. Now, that idea has turned into reality.
McCord, a 2013 graduate of SMWC’s master of leadership development (MLD) program, has recently opened a $2.5 million, 15,000-square feet assisted living facility in her hometown of Athens, a small Wisconsin farming village of about 1,000 people.
McCord wrote the business plan for the residential care apartment complex, now called Athenian Living, while in the MLD program in 2013. It was her capstone project. Four years later, the first residents have started moving in.
The knowledge she gained and relationships she formed at SMWC helped her during the early stages of the project. The MLD program “gave me the confidence to actually pursue even writing the business plan,” McCord said. After writing and presenting her final project, a couple of her professors asked her about the likelihood of it becoming reality. At least one uttered the encouragement she needed, “you can do this,” she was told.
She values the support she received from her professors and classmates. “The people who were involved in watching me write it and listen to the defense were my biggest cheerleaders,” McCord said.
While her SMWC family cheered her on, she also found support in the members of the Athens community who worked with her to realize the project. “When several people from the community heard about this project, they stepped forward to invest in it. This project was 100 percent community invested,” McCord said.
McCord’s drive to pursue her business idea was fueled by a desire to give something back to her native town. She wanted to do her part to keep Athens residents in Athens. “There is no assisted living nearby. So when family members need to move in to an assisted living facility, they were having to move 20-30 miles away. That makes it harder for families to be able to visit them” and they become disconnected from the community, McCord said.
After conversations about this need with her sister, Lori Zettler, now a co-owner of the facility, McCord researched assisted living regulations and models for her business plan. The plan further developed with the involvement of other partners and supporters, and in 2015, Athenian Properties, LLC was created. In early 2016, construction began on phase one of the designed 28-apartment assisted living complex. Phase one (which includes 14 units and a huge common area) has been completed, and residents moved in this past summer.
The place was designed to feel both like home and a social venue. “The town does not have a senior center,” McCord said. “So, we hope to become kind of the senior hub here in Athens.”
McCord, also a 2009 Woods Online business administration graduate, did not forget her beloved Woods throughout this process. A chapel in the facility is furnished with items — pews, a baby grand piano, statues and crucifixes — that she acquired when the Sisters of Providence auctioned off the contents of the now decommissioned Owens Hall.
Coming from a close-knit family of 12 children, McCord said her mother, whom she lost as a teenager, would have been proud of her for this initiative. McCord left a good job at Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis to pursue the idea.
“I left Athens many years ago and had a very prosperous career,” McCord said. “If it wasn’t me who would bring something like this back, who would?”
“Why not me?”
“I hope that this will create a community space for everyone to come together —young and old,” she said. “I also hope this project inspires others to take a chance and build a new business within the community.”