Christi sits down with Will Hays, COO of Hilltop Community Resources. Hear about the myriad of services that Hilltop provides, as well as Will's interesting journey and passion for his work.
Find out all the great work Hilltop does and how you can help at https://www.htop.org/
If you prefer to watch your podcasts, check out all our Full Circle episodes on our YouTube page!
Christi sits down with Will Hays, COO of Hilltop Community Resources. Hear about the myriad of services that Hilltop provides, as well as Will's interesting journey and passion for his work.
Find out all the great work Hilltop does and how you can help at https://www.htop.org/
If you prefer to watch your podcasts, check out all our Full Circle episodes on our YouTube page!
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Speaker 2:The Full Circle podcast, compelling interviews and incredible tales from Colorado's Western Slope, from the mountains to the desert. Christy Reese and her team here from the Movers Shakers, and characters of the Grand Valley and surrounding mountain towns that make the Western slope the place we all love. You'll learn, you'll laugh, you'll love with the full circle. Hello everyone. Kristy Reese here. Welcome back to the Full Circle Podcast. I'm really excited about our guest today , uh, longtime Grand Junction resident, and , um, big contributor to a lot of things in the community. Mr. Will Hayes .
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thanks for having me .
Speaker 2:Thank you for being here. Chief Operating Officer of the Hilltop Community Resources since 1999. That's
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:That's a long tenure. It
Speaker 3:<laugh> It is a long tenure. Yeah, it does feel long. When , um, when Sally Schafer , who was the past c e o was getting ready to resign, she promoted Mike, who's my boss, the c e o, and he brought up a team along with him at that point mm-hmm . <affirmative> to get ready. So, first was a , uh, vice president and then moved into the c o o role. Yeah .
Speaker 2:So I , I think a lot of people hear about Hilltop, but don't really know the , the whole scope of everything that you all do. So, can you describe for our listeners and our viewers , um, what the mission of Hilltop is and how it has changed over the years and expanded?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So actually we , um, we just had a board member go off after having two terms and his last meeting, he said, I actually know what Hilltop is now. <laugh> after eight , being on the eight years. Yeah. So , um, you're right, we have a big breadth of services, kind of everything from assisted living. So we have three large assisted living communities, two, two for seniors, one for brain injured , uh, adults, and then kind of the full spectrum of human services, social services kind of stuff. Through our family resource center. We have alternative school. We help do the insurance navigation , um, uh, for, for Colorado, for Western Colorado. Um, so yeah, full breadth. But we, we actually started as a rehab business, so
Speaker 2:A private company.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Denny Stahl , who is actually Mike's dad. It's not a, the Stalls don't own Hilltop, by the way, <laugh> . Um, but Denny Stahl was a , was a PT and opened up a small practice and , uh, or came into a small practice mainly working with , uh, kids with polio. So at , at some point , uh, we came up with a vaccine for polio and po , you know, kind of there goes the business. Um, so at , at that point, he pivoted into doing more kind of full rehab and working with a lot of folks with brain injury. We opened up a rehab hospital, and at that point our, our main referral source was St . Mary's Hospital. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And they decided they wanted to get into rehab. So obviously we saw the writing on the wall, we're gonna go out of business. So negotiated a deal with them. They bought our rehab hospital. So at that point , which
Speaker 2:Was where
Speaker 3:It's, it's where the, it's , um, on 12th and Patterson. Okay . So , um, they use it as their life center. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> is what it is now. Um, but yeah, that was , we still get calls saying, Hey, can, can we come to use the pool? 'cause it had a heated pool, <laugh> a rehab pool. Yep .
Speaker 2:I remember that pool.
Speaker 3:Yep . So we refer a lot of people, no , you gotta call St . Mary's to , to , to do that, or we connect them with stuff. But , um, so had a , had a full team, had about 400 employees, went down to just a handful of folks on our , um, with our brain injury program. We still had a, at that point, it was a very small program , uh, brain injury program, which is actually, I think next year gonna be celebrating their 40th anniversary as a company or as a , as a business. But , um, so yeah, at that point , um, as Mike tells it, you know, he had a full senior leadership team and nothing to do. Um, and the Women's Resource Center, I don't know if you remember that organization, but they were grassroots, nonprofit , kind of, you know, really everything that we're doing now in our family resource center, they basically lost their senior leadership team. People retired, they had a death. Um, their board was exhausted. And so we merged with them shortly after we , um, sold the hospital.
Speaker 2:And what year about was that?
Speaker 3:Uh , 93 maybe. Somewhere along in there. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 2:So really forward thinking organization for that era.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's, it's interesting because I think it's our greatest strength as a company that we don't get so locked into one individual program. We're more about building connections and community. Um, that's our, that's our purpose. That's how we state our purpose. Our mission is people mm-hmm . <affirmative> people first. Um, so we keep it very basic, which also means we can do just about anything if we feel like it's in our lane or it needs to be done. But we pride ourselves on not just doing things. We pride ourselves on bringing people together to say, okay, here's a , here's an issue that maybe we need to deal with as a community. Who's best to do it, and how do we do it best? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, yeah. So we've, we've stayed fluid. In fact , um, we have a lot of longevity. I mean, my longevity is not , not alone. I mean, a lot of our senior leadership team has been there a long time, but just even down through the ranks. And , um, part of that is because you can completely be tired of what you're doing and say, I , I'm gonna quit. I want to change careers, and you can do it and never leave Hilltop. So we have people that have gone from <laugh> , like, say interesting . Running, running, running the kitchen Yeah . In our assisted living facility to then , um, now she's like systems in our IT department mm-hmm. <affirmative> . Um , so, yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow . Yeah . And I, I know that you collaborate well with other organizations in, in Mesa County. Um, talk about those partnerships a little bit and how that has transformed not only Hilltop, but the other organizations and how you compliment each other.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's one of our big goals is to partner with, with , uh, other organizations. So we do a lot with aerial clinical services. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , um, Becky Hobart's, their executive director, c e o. Um, that's an example of where, you know, we meet on a regular basis and kind of say, okay, who's doing what do we need to expand? In fact, right now, we're both providing supervised parenting , uh, when, when parents are trying to get reunited with their children, if they've been involved in a , a child abuse , um, situation, there's room for both of us to do it. And it's important for parents to have choice. So that's a place where we might both do something. Other times we would say, Hmm , this doesn't make sense. Um, but we also just do, you know, organizational support mm-hmm . <affirmative> . So especially during , uh, the first couple of years of the pandemic, we have more infrastructure than a lot of other nonprofits. So like our purchasing department , um, the way we were developing our policies, the way we were working with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, we then took that stuff and just, I just shared it with all of my colleagues, you know, so I sent it to Wonderful. Yeah. Um , why recreate the wheel? And then likewise, they could come back and tell us, Hey, you know, I found some gloves. I know where , you know, I know where you can get some gloves. Right . It was down to that level where we, I was calling connections that I had with people, you know , back east
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm . <affirmative> to get needed supplies. Yep .
Speaker 3:Yep . Exactly. Wow. But , um, also just, you know, support. So I know , um, an , uh, stout, the mayor in , um, Z Miracle from United Way, we host a non-profit exec, happy hour. Um , and that's just the way to bring executives together to support each other. Sometimes we have a little bit of a program where , you know, where someone will come in and speak, but usually it's just how can we support each other? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:<affirmative>, y'all have the same mission to help the community. Exactly.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah .
Speaker 2:And yeah, a lot of ways we can help each other. We , you know , we do that in the real estate industry too, and people don't realize that we do that. Like I mastermind with some agents here in our community that most people would consider my competitors, but I'm like, there's enough business to go around. We can help each other and elevate our industry. That's
Speaker 3:Exactly, and that's very true. And human services for sure. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , there's unfortunately plenty of work to go around.
Speaker 2:Plenty of work to go around. What do you see as the, the trends that have changed in your line of work? Uh , and maybe that's pandemic related , but over the last 25 years , um, what has changed? More mental health services or more elder care ?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Um, I would say in general, like if , if I'm thinking about how my, my day-to-day work is different than it was 20 years ago, there are a lot more rules and regulations. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , um, not all of that's bad, but it , it takes a lot more time. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , there's a lot more scrutiny on the things that we do. A lot less trust, I would say , um, in , in the nonprofit sector in general. Um, but yeah, I , there's, we're dealing with more and more childhood mental health challenges, that's for sure. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , um, I , you know, kids are experiencing a level of impact in their lives that I, I haven't seen before. You know, usually I, there , there might be a family situation or a situation with a peer. Now, it just seems like across the board, and I know part of people talk about it all the time. Part of that's social media and just the, the access to constantly being reminded how you compare to other people. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Speaker 2:Having two teenagers myself. Um , yeah. It , it's definitely an issue that we have to deal with. And I think too , just bringing awareness to , um, kids' issues. You know, I think a lot of times it was just buck up <laugh> Yeah . Get back to school. Yep . And now we are addressing some of the things they're dealing with and the anxiety. Yep .
Speaker 3:Yeah .
Speaker 2:So how many facilities do you have right now? How many buildings? Because you manage a lot of improvements. We ,
Speaker 3:We do, and we also have , um, years ago we were in a partnership with the Atrium , um, which is an independent living , uh, facility that's up on 12th. They were purchased by a multinational corporation, and we , and we had a right of first refusal. We could no , you know , couldn't come close to matching what they were , um, offering. So we took a buyout at that point. That was in a , in a for-profit, that was a for-profit company. So we took that and did a 10 31 exchange. So we own commercial and residential properties all over Mesa County, Montrose County, and we actually have , uh, a commercial building in American Fork, Utah. At that point, we were just looking like , you know , how can we diversify mm-hmm . <affirmative> be in different markets. Um, so we have that side of our business, and really the mission of our for-profit is to generate profits. Then after taxes can come and support our nonprofit , kind of, you know, hopefully at some point be our own foundation in some ways where we're feeding into our, our , into our non-profit . But we have , um, we have , uh, a corporate office in Montrose , uh, where we provide, but it, it is our family resource center in that area. We have offices in Delta. Um , we've got, like I said, three big assisted living campuses here, plus, you know, multiple 11 Colorado. We have our family resource center there. So we're spread out all over the county
Speaker 2:And all those locations offering the same kinds of services that you do here. I mean, obviously this is like the, the mothership Yeah. Here, but , um,
Speaker 3:We don't do assisted living in Montrose and Delta. We, we looked at it, actually, we owned a piece of property that, that was the purpose. We were gonna build , um, an assisted living facility. And that's a great example where one, we did market studies, but then we met with the folks that were running , um, the assisted living communities down there, and they already had expansion plans mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And at that point, it's like, why open up another assisted living? Now we, we like to think that we do it better, <laugh> and we have a unique approach , um, uh, in terms of a , a really relational approach. But , um, yeah, it didn't make sense for us as a business. So we actually sold that piece of property , um, and put that into , put those resources into other things. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> .
Speaker 2:Yeah . So are your assisted living facilities, how are they different than ones that are , um, for-profit? And is it , um, is income related , need related ? How do you
Speaker 3:They are. So our two assisted livings that serve seniors, so the fountains and the commons, and then we have , um, uh, cottages and town homes around there that we, that are independent living. Um, we serve , um, they're private pay, so they're relatively high, high-end facilities. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . Um, and we do allow folks to, one of the things that's different about us is if you move in and you outlive your money, essentially we allow people to con convert over, onto Medicaid and stay there. Um, which we take a loss on that mm-hmm. <affirmative> , but at that point, you know, we usually now have had a relationship with this person and their family , um, or a couple , um, for years. And so it doesn't make sense to us to say, well, thanks for, you know, everything you've done , um, but goodbye.
Speaker 2:Right Now you're out. Now you're out.
Speaker 3:Yep . Yep . So that's one of the things that distinguishes us. But , um, if and when we are able to make , uh, generate , um, a margin on those programs, which right now we aren't because of additional expenses that we incurred during the pandemic. And , um, we've done a lot to increase our wages to try to , um, get up to market wages, but eventually, eventually we'll be back to, to having a margin of those programs. That money just goes back into the rest of our nonprofit stuff and really supports mainly our domestic violence program. So Latimer House, you may have heard of that. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , we have those services both here, Montrose, Delta, and we serve , uh, Gunnison and U Ray also. Um, but yeah, that's, that's the difference. And the other thing, and we probably could market it more, it's like for folks that, again, when we do have a margin that money stays here in this community, it stays on the Western slope, we're not sending money back to shareholders or to a company that owns us from outside. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> ,
Speaker 2:Which is wonderful. I love that. It's that it's so far reaching in our community, but locally , locally owned. Um, so what do you, what , what's the biggest need that you see coming up? Um, what do , what do you want listers to know , um, that you need from our community? I mean, you're there to help our community, but do you need volunteers? Do you need donations?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we do. <laugh> always. We , we need all, yeah. We need all of those, in fact. So we're about to celebrate our 75th years of company , um, next year. And , um, like the 25, 2025, I think it's already 24 because we're in our fiscal year. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , that is a 23, 24 fiscal year. Um, you're going to see us be more prominently asking for , um, donors and investors. That's something that we have not done a lot of as a company. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , um, we have always prided ourselves in , in being able to run independently without it. But what we've realized is that it's not just about the money, it's, it's like volunteering. So if you, if you make a donation to an organization, you believe in their mission. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , well, you can be a realtor, as you know, and you can still, at the end of the day, 'cause you all have donated to Latimer House before, you can feel good about the mission that's accomplished through the dollars that come in. But we do, we have a very robust volunteer department also that volunteer in almost all of our programs. And it , they make a huge difference Yeah . To us accomplishing our mission.
Speaker 2:How many employees do you have at Hilltop now? Uh,
Speaker 3:530. Wow. Give or take. Yeah.
Speaker 2:One of the bigger employers. It's , it's a lot in Mesa County then . Yes .
Speaker 3:Yeah . Yeah . Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . We are. Yeah .
Speaker 2:And , um, I wanna talk a little bit about your , uh, your personal life. Okay . Great . Let's just take right in . Um, how did you tell us about your journey to Grand Junction and how you got here and how you got connected originally with Hilltop?
Speaker 3:Um, yeah. So , um, we, my wife Sean and I first came to Grand Junction. We , um, met at a camp, a backpacking camp, up up , uh, oh yeah . Up at the head of the Rio Grande River , um, called Wilderness Ranch. She was a guide. I was the C Creed Yeah. Creed. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , as you know Well. Yep , yep . Love that area. Yep . Um , she was a guide, and I was the ranch manager. So, you know, essentially I drove the truck around and had , had controls of the keys to who got to use the chainsaw. Um, but, but we worked a lot together. When she would be off the trail, she would always volunteer for the really terrible jobs, like, like digging the new outhouses and stuff. And that's what I typically did. And so we spent a lot of time together, decided to get married. Um, I wanted, I grew up in the South , um, I grew up in, in Florida and Georgia, and she was from Iowa, so she had never seen the South, and I wanted her to, to get to know a little bit about it, but not really. So we moved to Asheville, North Carolina, <laugh> , which, you know, now is definitely like the boulder of the South. Yeah . But even then, it was, it was a very progressive community. And , but someone that I had worked with , um, before I went to the ranch, a social worker that I'd worked with in Colorado Springs, I worked at a residential program there, called me and said, Hey, would you guys consider moving back to Colorado? I said , you know, we were like, yeah, sure. You know, I don't know. I still had not landed a job in my field. Um, Sean was working in , uh, uh, early childhood, and we said, yeah, we, we missed Colorado. We'd love to move to Colorado. So he's like, yeah, I , I have this position open. You'd be the director of a residential, our group home. And I'm like, okay, well, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm 25 years old.
Speaker 2:And it's interesting why , why he thought of you for that role. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I, I <laugh> , I don't know actually. Um, uh, but he did. And we thought, well , you know, how often are we gonna have this opportunity? So we kind of looked at the maps, like, okay, yeah. Grand Junction. We left Asheville in February , um, and drove into Grand Junction down Business Loop 70 in 1993 in
Speaker 2:February. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's not the most beautiful month. <laugh> to , to , uh, to , to come to Grand Junction. In fact, we just drove in from the west, and I was, man, look how beautiful this is. You know, kind of coming in past Loma and everything. Um, it doesn't look that way in February. It has its own different look, especially coming from North Carolina, which was super green. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , I mean , even in the winter. But, so that's how we got here. Um, Sean actually taught at the , um, the detention facility for kids. And , um, ended up landing a job in the school district. I worked , um, like I said, running this group home. It was an incredible experience. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , like, I , I , I can't stress how important tho those years were to, to frankly fail a lot and survive and get through that , um,
Speaker 2:And be in the trenches of that industry. Right. And to know what, not only your clients, but your employees go through on a daily basis.
Speaker 3:Yep . Yep . Exactly. Exactly. Um, yeah, incredible experience. I , I then left and went, worked at the, what , what was called , um, Colorado West Mental Health Center at the time. Now it's Mine Springs working in their program , uh, mentoring for kids and families. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Um , and at a certain point, I, our, my director left and I found myself supervising the child and family department and thinking, oh boy, you know, I've got a degree in philosophy and religion and social science. Like, I'm definitely in over my head, <laugh> . So , um, I talked to the C E O at the time , um, a man named Ken Stein. And , uh, I said, Hey, I'm thinking about going back to graduate school, just wanna , you know , get your take on this. And he said, you know, will, if you wanna stay at Mine Springs or Colorado West Mental Health Center, he said, you don't , you don't need a graduate degree. You're fine. You future is set here. We see, you know , your ability. He said, but you know, you might not want to. And I was like, like, the light went on. I'm like, oh , that is absolutely right, <laugh>, I , I don't want to be limited , um, by my degree or by anything else. So , um, I, I realized I needed to go back to graduate school mm-hmm . <affirmative> , and I didn't think I could do it remotely, and I didn't want to go somewhere and Sean and I not be together. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , that's not why we got married. And so , um, we went to Madison, Wisconsin. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , which was another shock for me. <laugh> , you know, it's a southern boy, Florida boy. Right. It's cold up there in winter. Oh my God. Yeah. It snowed and then it just stayed ice until for like six, eight months <laugh> . Um , but I had an incredible experience in social work school up there. And Sean had an incredible experience , um, and working for the district there. They're very, very innovative. Got a call spring break my senior year , um, from Mike Stahl , who I had worked with on a bunch of committees. At that point, the community was even more collaborative than it is now, especially in health and Human services. We really came together and solved problems. And , um, so I had worked very closely with him at the point , at that time, he and I both were kind of the young, the young guys, you know? Yeah . Young , young leadership. And , uh, he called and said, Hey, would you be interested in coming back? And so Shauna and I were both like, Hey, you know, I'm a social worker now. She's a teacher. We can go anywhere in the world, frankly. And, but if I want to go back, I , I had met Sally Schaffer , um, she's did a lot of coaching. Um , she was the c e O at the time , um, and of Hilltop. And so I always thought, alright , at some point I'd love to work for her. Um, you know, people tend to work for people by the way. I'm sure you , you've had that experience. You can do any job, but if you work for a leader that you really respect and that you're learning from it, it , it makes it feel very different. So agreed to come back. Sean's like, okay, you know, we're going back to Grand Junction <laugh> . Like , um, I didn't think , I didn't know that we would do this, and neither did I. Um, but yeah. So that was in , uh, 1999. So Bennett Hilltop ever since. Wow. Yep . That's great. And we've, Sean and I have been recently talking about this, so she just partially retired from the school district after 30 years. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . But she's still working halftime there and working with some families in the community. And it's like, are we gonna stay here? Why are we still here? Like, what if we had stayed in Asheville? What if we had gone someplace else? And, you know, honestly, it's hard to know what would've happened. But I, I think for me, in my career, and I, and I think the same for Sean , like, we've had just these unbelievable opportunities. Um, I I , I was just meeting with a group of young leaders, the Chamber puts on that. Young professionals. Yes. And they had that, that a training day. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> just recently at C M U . And , um, I got to facilitate a session and someone was talking about just , oh , you know, we're getting these new regulations and they keep us from doing the things that we really want to do. And I'm like, hold on here. We can actually call our representatives <laugh> . Like, I , you know, I've been appointed by the governor to boards. Like, I, I can get in touch with this office. Like, we, we can do real change here. So , um, I feel like, yeah, there's some things that I don't always love about Grand Junction. Um, but man , the access and the, and the control that you have over , uh, I , especially in, in my field, I think is incredible.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Don't go anywhere. Yeah. Yeah . Stay here, will
Speaker 3:<laugh> . Well, I think, yeah , we're stuck now. So ,
Speaker 2:Um, you know , I see, well , a lot of people , um, you know, getting a little cabin up in the mesa or up in the mountains, you know, and having that nice combination of Grand Junction and a little mountain escape ,
Speaker 3:Escape, heat escape , and get up to the mountains. Yeah . Yeah . Yeah. This is the greatest base camp in the world.
Speaker 2:It really is, isn't it? <laugh> . Yeah . Um, so some of the other things that you're involved with , um, you are just about to leave the board of the Colorado Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Um, and you were appointed in 2012. So that was, you've been doing that a while too. And that relates back to your , um, the work that you did as a younger person. Yeah . Juveniles. Yeah . Yeah,
Speaker 3:That's , that , that's exactly, mm-hmm . <affirmative> , I was involved in a lot of collaboratives for , um, juvenile justice, really with the aim of one, providing the best services we can, but getting kids out of care, keeping them out of care. So we're still involved. Uh, Hilltop is in a lot of the, the juvenile justice preventative services here. But , um, yeah , uh, got appointed asked by the governor to join this board. Um, soon after that, I became the chair. And then during the pandemic, actually I was, we have two term limits , um, and my term limit came up and the governor did an emergency reappointment , um, which was very flattering to me to keep me, 'cause I was one of, I think two that he did reappointments for. So, yeah. I'm , I'm actually finishing up my third term and , um, proud to say that all the person who's following me is the chair is , um, Paula Mattis from Partners. So two Oh, wonderful. Two Western Slope people. And , uh, a past chair was Joe Higgins. So we have been represented very well here on the Western Slope. Yeah .
Speaker 2:And on the state level, what are you focused on with that group? I mean,
Speaker 3:Yeah. Our, our, we , we do a three year plan. In fact, we're coming up on that again. One, our role actually, it's , um, it's mandated by legislation, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. So any state that receives receives juvenile justice dollars from the feds is required to have a state advisory group. And that's what this group serves as to advise the governor. We also , um, uh, help keep us accountable to following the federal rules around detention and commitment and , um, the use of jails. Um, so we, we focus on those, those are kind of the core compliance. Um, and then we've been looking at the intersection between education and juvenile justice. That's one of our focuses. We're working on , uh, revisions to the children's code. Um, the , the juvenile side , the children's code. It's very technical, but you can just imagine, you , you , you have a policy and every time you make a ad, if it's , um, something like the Children's Code, you just put a new policy in. You don't go back and change the other policies. It just gets stuck in wherever it gets stuck in. So it's incredibly confusing. So we just finished a reorder, and now we're going back and trying to actually look to get it up to date with current, you know, what we know about how kids develop. Um, I think that those are our main focuses going into this next year. Yeah .
Speaker 2:Thank you for your service. Yeah . Yeah. Thank
Speaker 3:You. Yeah , it's amazing . It's an honor.
Speaker 2:And , uh, also , um, D 51 Foundation.
Speaker 3:Yep . So, just came on the D 51 , uh, foundation last year. I mean , it's easy to , to support. Um , Angela Christianson,
Speaker 2:She's such a wonderful ,
Speaker 3:Wonderful group. Oh, yeah, yeah . Doing good stuff, as you know. Um, so yeah, in fact, we just, we just had our board meeting , uh, last week looking at where we're heading for next year.
Speaker 2:And so tell us what, what kind of things are you talking about with D 51? Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, we, we've , um, geez , Angela's gonna kill me if I don't remember our core pillars, <laugh> , um, you know, we're still focused on technology , um, still focused on , um, uh, development for teachers. For teachers. Yep . Yep . And we've added a new one, which is around, it's not kids' mental health, but it's, it's , um, we're, we're supporting efforts for teachers to invest in their own wellbeing. Um, so that's a new thing we have come up. In fact, there's, there's an event, I think this Wednesday or Thursday where it's just, the first one is just like a happy hour, bringing people together, talking about what it, what it could be. So Yeah .
Speaker 2:That's great. I , I've been a big , um, fan of that organization and a supporter because I think our teachers are underpaid and overworked and they need every bit of help they can get. And I think offering to, to send them to classes and self-development is just a huge benefit. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we're trying , trying to do things that, you know, maybe the school district itself would have a hard time doing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> things that are a little bit more outside the box. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> ways that we can spend our money , um, that maybe the district can't mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Speaker 2:And they put on a great party. Yeah.
Speaker 3:They put on a great party. That Right . We had the white ice that the , the , the fundraiser for the white ice will come up soon. Miss it . Yeah . It was like the largest one that weve ever had last year. Yeah .
Speaker 2:It was great, actually. The really liked the one outside in the Rain two . I , I , I had a great time party
Speaker 3:<laugh> . Yeah . It gets really loud in there. That's one thing. It's hard to talk. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then , uh, breaking news. Um, C M U Foundation Board. That's right. Latest venture. So off the , um, juvenile justice and delinquency program. And, and somebody tapped you already Yeah.
Speaker 3:Got the call from Robin and , and , and President Marshall. Yep . I'm gonna go on the foundation board. I'm , in fact, I have my orientation coming up on Wednesday. I am really looking forward to seeing how the mission of the foundation supports the mission of C M U . Sean and I have , have donated before to scholarships, and we've been supporters of the mission of C M U , but to get more directly involved, and anytime , of course, you get to work with Robin Brown is a Right . Is a bonus. Um , agree . I've learned a lot from her, so mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:<affirmative> , she's a go-getter. Yeah . And C M U is doing the , the expansion and everything that they've done. That's Yeah. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Watching it every time I go on that campus, you know, I , I , I think, man, one of these days I'm gonna work for C M U <laugh> . Like , this is just such an incredible place to be . It just feels good. I think part of it's 'cause I love watching people grow. It's part of what I like about my current job, working more directly with employees than, than our residents, our participants and our residents. Um, just watching people do maybe achieve more than they thought they could or knew that they could mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And that's part of the mission. They , you know , of course C M U serves so many first generation students, which is Yes . Yeah. Something near and dear to my heart too.
Speaker 2:And I, you know, growing up in Western Colorado , um, when I was in high school , um, Mesa was the , the kind of place you went if you couldn't get in anywhere else, you know, and I love seeing that change. My nephew just started here. Oh, that's awesome. And I transferred from a , a college in Iowa. Wow. And everybody in the family is just so excited. I mean , they came over here and they said, wow, the dorms are fantastic. The campus is beautiful. It's not the old Mesa that
Speaker 3:You knew . Yeah . Me , Mesa State. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:From a long time ago. Um, so we talked a little bit about, beforehand on , on whether you wanted to talk about the , uh, Mesa County Board of Public Health, and you said you would Sure. So , um, what's your, what's your take on where things stand right now? I know that you resigned from the board along with many others, and you want to share with our listeners why, if they don't know Yeah,
Speaker 3:Sure. If, if , you know, if you read the paper, you've read about this over and over and over again. Um, um, but yeah, so , um, I've been on the board I think for nine years. Um, and when had just become the chair when , uh, um, Jeff, the executive director came under some financial scrutiny , um, from the county commissioners, and we met and said, of course, you know , no problem. Let's figure this out. We'll look ,
Speaker 2:Get into it. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Yeah, of course. Um, and even the board, you know, we, we used , um, a governor's model, not to get too far in the weeds, but the Carver model, which , um, frankly we received some recognition, some national recognition for being a public health agency that , that adopted this model. But it, it put us a little more out of the weeds. Um, and we felt like we could do that because we have a contract with the county to do our accounting and our, and our HR stuff. We definitely had misunderstanding between what we thought we were doing and what they thought we were doing, and vice versa. Um, discovered some stuff. Jeff and his team immediately took ownership. We put corrective actions in place , um, but for the commissioners that it wasn't enough. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, you know, I, I think in terms of when, part of why I , I'm totally willing to talk about this, and I think commissioners would be too , um, is just from what I have learned from it, you know, I , I think obviously public service is very important. It's been a big part of who I am and to, to come into an organization, especially one like public health, where on one hand you need to bring yourself to that role as a board member. At the same time, you know, we're asked to also stand a little bit outside of ourselves mm-hmm. <affirmative> and our personal, maybe what we would want to achieve personally. Um, so, you know, I, I'm hopeful that the new board that's now been put together, there's some very prominent folks on there and I think are, are coming from the right place that they will get to that place too. Um, what's disappointing, I guess on my part is two things. One , um, when this started to go down, I mean, I had just recruited <laugh> new board members, and what I told them is it's, it's like getting high fives all the time because it's just amazing what public health had accomplished and the way their culture was at that point.
Speaker 2:Incredible. Through the pandemic. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Through the pandemic. And even leading up into that, where , um, Jeff and his team had really done a lot of stuff with their employee culture and with the mission of the organization, really aligning with the , um, the social determinants of health, which is a really broad way of looking at what the mission of public health would be. And then to , to have that disrupted. Um, unfortunately, and then for me personally, you know, as , as a professional, I , I've worked with people from all kinds of varied backgrounds who maybe couldn't, couldn't agree and have always prided myself in being able to reach some sort of compromise, some sort of win-win,
Speaker 2:And being open-minded and saying , willing to listen to views.
Speaker 3:Hey, we don't agree mm-hmm. <affirmative> , but we're, but for the good of the order, we're gonna move forward and this is what we're gonna do. So I was disappointed that we weren't able to reach that. Um , to the point that, yeah, in our last meeting is basically we were told you're either gonna be removed or you can resign. And I think, I don't, in most of us just did not want to go through a public process like that. And we , I had some young leaders on the group that definitely were replacing their career where it didn't make sense for them mm-hmm. <affirmative> . And so we , we decided to resign. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Speaker 2:How many people resigned at once?
Speaker 3:It was four of us resigned. Um, and Janet stayed the fifth member. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Yeah . And I've worked with Janet, by the way, my whole career. So we've done a lot of great stuff together. So I harbor new Ill will like to her.
Speaker 2:So certainly, and yeah , we all hope that progress will continue there at the health department and, and things will get back to , um, yeah. Being, being a great organization. Um, and, and Jeff now has got some new plans.
Speaker 3:Yeah , he's, I just reached out to him and he was camping, so I think he's finally getting to take some time off. So I don't know yet what he's going to actually do. Um, but I know even before this, we felt like we had to, we had to continue to be competitive because people were always reaching out to him and wanting to hire him. So mm-hmm. <affirmative> ,
Speaker 2:Who knows what comes great , great asset to our community, and hopefully we can wrangle him to stay here and do something. Great. Well , um, you , you've given so much to our community. I mean, really, I think , um, I, I see you at meetings and I see you in the paper, and I , uh, just wanna say a big thank you for, I mean, all of the different , um, ways you help members of our community and our kids and your wife as well. Yeah . Fantastic teacher. Um, so if people want to get more involved with Hilltop, say they wanna volunteer or just learn more about your programs, what's the best way to do that?
Speaker 3:The best way is just to go to our website. Yep . Just go to the Hilltop website. Um, we've got everything on there about our services, about our mission, our values, and there's links to pretty much every way to get involved. You can always just reach out to me directly. Um, uh, I, I'm always glad to meet with people and talk about what we do and maybe how they could help or how we could help them too. That's the other thing we, like you brought up earlier, as a larger nonprofit , we love to try to help other nonprofits be successful. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I think if you're someone in our community that has an issue, you don't know where to go, Hilltop might be a good first place to start. Right? Yeah. I'll tell you , you all know the different resource avenues.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I, I love it. This is one of the things that, that we pride ourselves in. Um, but, so even like at our , uh, at our corporate office , um, Tracy , who, who is our , is the administrator over the front of her office. I hear her all the time on phone calls, she'll go mm-hmm. <affirmative> . Okay, well, we don't actually do that, but hold on just a second. <laugh>. And she connects 'em directly with whatever it is. And of course we run 2 1 1. We're , we're the, the agency that's over 2 1 1. So that's one thing. If you don't know what to do, if you just dial 2 1 1, you'll get someone. And if they can't help you, they can, they know the person that , that that can, but yeah, if you just call Hilltop, I mean the kind of, the classic is, I don't know what you do, but I heard you can help me . Right. So that's
Speaker 2:Kind , so on one
Speaker 3:Hand we want more people to know what we do. On the other hand it's like, well, that's not a , that's not a bad place to be.
Speaker 2:That's right. Call. Everybody knows you're , you're there to help. And that's, if that's what the main thing they get from seeing your logo, that's a wonderful thing. I agree. It gives me goosebumps.
Speaker 3:Me too. It feels like such a privilege to get to be part of that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you Will Hayes for joining us today. Anything else you wanna share with our listeners?
Speaker 3:I, I don't think so. A lot . Thank you for giving me this opportunity , uh, to , to talk too .
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Thanks again for your service. And I'm Kristy Reese with Will Hayes, and we'll see you next time on the Full Circle podcast. Thanks. Thanks for listening. This is Christie Reese signing out from the Full Circle Podcast.