Ayodele Ena Findlay

I've been working in nursing home administration for 7 years now, and it's been quite a journey. When I first started, it was really hard to get into the field because all the jobs wanted people with experience, and I had just started so I didn't have any. But I was given the opportunity by a very lovely person who turned out to be my boss, and she became my mentor. We have a very strong relationship even up till now, and she sort of showed me the ropes and taught me everything I know within the nursing home administration field. My very first facility was in DeLand, a 65-bed facility, and I worked there over a year while commuting from Orlando where I've always lived. Then I had the opportunity to work at a facility in Kissimmee where I met my mentor, and I worked with her for just under a year. After that, I moved to a facility in Jacksonville and worked there for almost 2 years before coming back to Orlando, where I've been working within the Orlando area since then. My greatest accomplishment has been building successful teams. What I love most about the field is looking after the residents we have, building relationships with the residents, building relationships with their family members, and of course building relationships with my team. I currently manage roughly 150 to 200 employees at one facility. I want to stay at a facility and see it successful - I don't like being over more than one facility. I'm also a trained nurse, which really helped during the COVID period when I was in DeLand. During that time, we had staff ill with COVID and residents with their comorbidities were dying, and my Director of Nursing was doing CPR on one side while I was doing CPR on another. It was horrible, but we made it through.