Meet Our CSA Spotlight – Alan Wyngarden
With a passion for serving the senior community, Alan Wyngarden’s ideas turned into reality, with the opening of two memory-care assisted living homes and co-founding Universal Senior Living, a senior-based web resource for seniors and their families. Read his story.

http://www.csa.us/email/spirit/ssarticles/0612CSASpotlight.html

I think what drew me to want to serve the senior community was when I started thinking about how the end of my father’s life played out and the fact that my mom was aging through the process as well. When I began to think of the specific needs and requests of my father as his time drew nearer to the end, and the needs of my mom both during and after his passing, I decided to start exploring the senior market to see where I might be able to fit in and help.

About 24 months ago I took a deep look into the market and laid out plans to open a small boutique memory care assisted living home called Applewood Our House, which is located in Golden, Colorado. I had no idea at the time that it would become so meaningful and that it would impact everyone, staff and family alike, at such a heart felt level. I am in the process now of opening a second one in Lakewood.

At the end of 2011 with plans already in the work for Applewood we also began the journey into developing a web based resource for seniors and their families so that they could have a “one stop shop” to go to as a resource to help them navigate through the challenges associated with aging – which is www.UniversalSeniorLiving.com.

We wanted seniors to be able to go through the changes of aging while being able to maintain their dignity, and to give families a resource to help put them at ease when they entered a time when all of the “knowns” about their loved ones had suddenly become “unknowns”. We also wanted to provide a way to give other small businesses who serve seniors a way to get infront of them, so there is an aspect to the site that also helps these small business owners.

Getting our CSA designations and the knowledge gained through their course has been extremely valuable. I know that our relationship with the CSA organization itself as well as with individual CSA’s across the country will be invaluable as I continue to try and find ways to serve this very special population of people.