Good Samaritan unveils modern national campus
It’s a half-mile hike from one end of the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society campus to the other.
Most days, senior director of communications Mark Dickerson tracks that he has walked at least 10,000 steps.
It was only recently, though, that the entire trip could be made through a newly connected trio of buildings on the southwest Sioux Falls campus.
Good Samaritan is wrapping up a two-year, approximately $30 million project to expand and renovate more than 200,000 square feet of space.
“We really were in construction pretty much everywhere on campus,” said Greg Amble, director of construction and design. “Everyone relocated at least once.”
The 607 people who work on the national campus now mostly have moved into their new office space. The project was designed to connect all the buildings but also modernize them, adding more energy efficiency and amenities including a larger cafeteria and fitness center.
There’s more technology, too. Conference rooms include digital scheduling on small monitors outside the door that synch with employees’ Microsoft Outlook calendars. Inside meeting rooms, laptops easily plug in and work with large monitoring for video conferencing.
Good Samaritan has 164 teleworkers and 21,000 employees nationwide. Its national campus used to serve as a training center with accommodations for overnight visitors. A shift to more video conferencing created the need for additional meeting rooms equipped to handle the demand.
It all ties to the organization’s mission “to change the experience of aging in America,” president and CEO David Horazdovsky said, adding that part of the vision is to create a place where thought leaders can gather and collaborate.
“We wanted to create a place in the Midwest where that type of meeting can occur and we can provide leadership to those important developments as our population ages.”
The campus also houses growing areas for Good Samaritan including its foundation and a connections center that takes thousands of calls from people of all ages nationwide.
Horazdovsky describes them as people journeying through aging and in need of guidance on everything from how to handle the heat being turned off to issues of isolation.
While they aren’t residents at Good Samaritan properties or sometimes even in geographic areas served by Good Samaritan, he says assisting is part of the organization’s mission.
“We stay connected with the pulse of the country that way.”
While Good Samaritan traditionally has been associated with providing housing and care for seniors, the organization has been innovating around attempting to keep people in their homes. With that also has come a focus on isolation, which Horazdovsky said one in three members of the elderly experience.
“We can do better as a country to try and connect with them,” he said. “When we have people falling through the gaps of health care, we can do better and better collaborate to make sure a person has a full experience without falling through the gaps. When we think of ways technology can touch peoples’ lives in different ways, we think we can do better.”
In designing the new space, Good Samaritan put thought into how the current and next generation in the workplace wants to work, he added.
“We have found that workforce today likes to be collaborative. They want to be face to face with one another. That’s how they have gone through as education has changed,” Horazdovsky said.
The office buildings are designed with many collaborative areas, a lot of natural light and features designed to draw people into conversations.
“It’s through relationships people feel a sense of community and through that relationship and meaningful work that engagement occurs,” he said. “When that happens, great things can happen to those we serve. Don’t look at this as just a beautiful building. We’ve very proud of it, but we’re mostly proud of the work being accomplished in it and what it represents.”