Onyx Fall-Winter 2017

“WHY NOT ME?"

2013 Master of Leadership Development Graduate Turns Capstone Project into a $2.5 Million, 15,000-Square Feet Assisted Living Facility

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

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

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

16