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By Meghan McIntyre

Judy Raymond, executive director of Lake Prince Woods retirement community, is the recipient of the 2022 Vision Award for her dedication to serving the senior living industry for nearly 30 years.

“It really is a great honor. I’ve just always felt strongly about mentoring and bringing people on board,” Raymond said. “And to see the vision that we need leaders, it was wonderful to be recognized.”

LeadingAge Virginia, an association of not-for-profit aging services providers in Virginia, recognized Raymond for her accomplishments with the award at its 2022 annual conference in June. These include advancing diversity in leadership, expanding services for residents, and achieving the “Great Place To Work” certification for the past three years.

Raymond started work on diversifying leadership roles when noticing a lot of the boards and committees she’s served on through the years were male dominated.

“When I look at boards, I really like to see where we have people from all walks of life,” said Raymond. “All nationalities, all ethnicities, everybody inclusive and to me that’s really important.”

She started to work with more interns and AITs (Administer-in-training) as a way for them to grow within the industry and advance to leadership positions that they might not have had the opportunity to do in other places.

“I want to make sure that as I get older that there are people in the workforce around that want to be doing this,” Raymond said.

Raymond worked to obtain a license for home care so more services could be offered to independent living residents through nursing in the retirement community. She also worked to obtain a hospice and home health license so that services can be provided out in the greater community, not just on the Lake Prince Woods campus.

“We’re just trying to be more inclusive and allow people to age as they want to age,” Raymond said. “If they want to stay in their home, provide the services to allow them to stay in their home.”

Lake Wood Prince has also achieved the “Great Place to Work” certification for the past three years, which is awarded to companies that have at least a 65% trust factor with employees determined through an anonymous survey. The senior community home has a trust factor of over 90% this year, Raymond said.

The dedication that Raymond has for her work doesn’t go unnoticed either, like when in 2020 residents and staff surprised her with a celebration for her 10th anniversary of being the executive manager.

“I can say I have never really gotten up and said I don’t want to go to work,” Raymond said. “I like to do things to make our team happy and I’ve always liked working with seniors.”

Raymond’s service in the senior living community started after her mother showed her an ad in the newspaper for an activity assistant at a nursing home and encouraged her to apply.

Raymond quickly found that working with seniors was her calling and dedicated the next 28 years of her life towards serving these communities.

“My mom was in a community and a dementia community and to me it’s paying it forward,” said Raymond. “So there are people out there that care for the people I know and love the right way and it’s just trying to help grow those leaders and people.