Tom Yates is going through a bit of a transition at Providence Down Manor, where he’s worked as community relations coordinator for almost two years.
He’s decided to cut back on his hours and has taken a new position that begins this Sunday: activities and transportation assistant for Providence Down Manor and neighboring Providence Brookside Manor.
“I like my job,” said Yates. “I like helping senior people. I just turned 66, so I’m like, ‘Tom, you’d better start liking yourself,’” he joked.
Yates has been with Providence for the past seven years, and this is not the first change he’s made, having started as assistant administrator at Brookside.
But more on that later.
As community relations coordinator, Yates is in charge of outreach — or, in his words, “bringing people into the building.” He described the job as “full time, just being out in the community and letting people know the good things about Down Manor.”
His new schedule will allow him the flexibility to volunteer more frequently at Faith Bible Church and the Hood River Lions Club, where he serves as chairman of the Lions Club Foundation.
It will also allow him more contact with residents — his favorite part. He’ll divide his time between Down Manor and Brookside, two parts of the “Senior Village” that makes up Providence assisted living and care sites; the other is Providence Dethman Manor.
“We’re actually doing more to try to come together,” he said of Down Manor and Brookside. “It’s an easy transition because I know all the people. I’ve spent the last year and a half — almost two years, really — focusing on Down Manor, and one of my concerns always was just losing touch with the Brookside Manor people.”
While his focus has been bringing people to Down Manor, he spends many hours with the residents.
“It’s interesting talking to residents,” he said. “The more you know (about them), the more you can meet their needs and care for them.”
Despite the new position, he will be doing some of the same tasks: he facilitates a dementia support group for family members (held Wednesdays), a men’s group (started about eight months ago with Brookside activity director Jacky Koester) and the monthly resident council meeting, helps write the newsletter with Dethman Manor manager Jessica Franklin, participates in resident events and activities, provides transportation to medical appointments for both Down Manor and Brookside, and occasionally helps staff in Brookside’s memory care unit or the Friday “Drive to Nowhere” in Down Manor’s 14-passanger van, the point of which is to just drive.
“I enjoy that because I’ve lived here long enough now, it’s nice to talk to them as we drive,” Yates said. “So many have grown up here … there’s just so much history here.”
Yates and wife Carol, who is the business manager at Horizon Christian School, moved to Hood River in 1976. He graduated from Washington State University with a teaching degree and taught government classes in Prineville for three years before deciding that he wanted to be a broadcast journalist, specifically for KGW in Portland. He went to the University of Oregon, where he graduated with a journalism degree.
While at UO, he met Greg Walden, who was in one of his journalism classes. He eventually decided he “really didn’t have the stage presence to be on KGW,” and, while talking with Walden, learned about Hood River and its radio station.
“He said, ‘you ought to check out KIHR, that’s the station my dad owns, and you’d just love this town,’” Yates remembered. While on a trip to Dayton, Wash., where he grew up, in 1975, he and Carol stopped in Hood River, spending the night at the Vagabond Lodge and driving around the area.
“We were just giddy about Mount Hood,” he said — and then they realized that Mount Adams was visible from town too.
They decided this is where they wanted to live. Paul Walden offered Yates a job at KIHR, and the couple moved to town after Yates graduated from UO, raising daughters Calista, Kristen, Kara and Laura.
Yates worked at KIHR for two years before going to work in public relations for United Telephone Northwest — a difficult decision, as it took him a couple of days to accept the new job offer. He “retired” at age 55, after 25 years with the company, when United Telephone began downsizing.
Wondering what the next step in his life would be, he met a fellow Lions Club member who was the manager of Hawks Ridge.
“At that point in time, my folks had gone to assisted living and I thought, ‘you know, I have so much fun talking to seniors about their lives and whatnot,’ so I applied at Hawks Ridge and got the job there.”
He worked four years as assistant administrator before moving to Brookside Manor for a similar position in 2008.
“I am a small part of the picture when you consider the day-to-day caregivers,” he said. “I admire all the nursing staff who spend hour after hour giving care and being with the residents far beyond my presence.
“I just feel like I’ve had an amazing life, from the time I was in little league in Dayton to now … Any goodness I have, I give credit to God.”
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