By Tom Lydon

Chief Executive Officer

Lifespire Staff,

A year ago, if someone told you about a virus leading to a worldwide pandemic you would have thought they were referencing the plague in the Middle Ages. 2020 …what a year! 2020…coronavirus-19 the challenges at times were emotional and psychologically crushing. The tragic loss of life, the strain on our medical infrastructure, the limited availability of PPE’s during the onset of the deadly disease, toilet paper shortages, food shortages, no movies, no sports and no social gatherings!

As Lifespire reflects on this past year, we are filled with gratitude and appreciation for all of you. We all should be proud of all of our essential staff who unselfishly put themselves in harm’s way daily. We showed up day in, day out working well beyond a regular seven-hour shift proving our dedication and commitment to our founders’ vision. We recognize our essential staff provided the support to our individuals with humility, compassion, and respect.

Thank you to all of our direct support professionals, the assistant managers, managers, RPC’s, day program directors, assistant day service directors, all of our CBE staff, our HR staff, our accounting/finance/ payroll and data processing staff, all of our clinical staff Jerry Bucher and his purchasing department staff, Luis Avellaneda and his facilities management staff. What an incredible job our IT, Investigations, IRC staff did behind the scenes to keep the workflow going. A special thank you goes out to Dr. Powell, our entire nursing staff and department VP’s for their outstanding leadership throughout this crisis. A huge thank you to Emilio Bonilla and his lieutenants, we do not know how they work their fiscal magic but they keep us on track.

2020 a year we will never forget. We are at the end of 2020 with several vaccines soon to be available to us. Thank God! We all should pray we never experience such an acerbic year in our lifetime or for that matter in our great, great, great children’s lives. Looking ahead to 2021, Lifespire wishes you and yours a Happy New Year that is filled with hope, peace and joy.

Best Regards,
Tom