JULY 2013
H
business elite canada
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in such a short time.
“I know everyone talks about
having great meal experienc-
es, but we really do believe
that the dining room is the
hub of the business,” Lavallée
said. “We work very hard ev-
eryday to make sure that it’s
the best experience for every-
one.”
Lavallée, the first person hired
at Seasons, previously worked
in business development. His
12 years of experience has fo-
cused on seniors’ housing and
retirement living in large and
small-scale businesses.
“Seasons came together as an
investment vehicle for a group
of institutional and pension
fund investors to enter the se-
niors housing market class,”
Lavallée said. “When an op-
portunity to create an acqui-
sition took place back in June
[2009], the portfolio was be-
ing managed by another op-
erator.”
Lavallée was brought in to
build the team, create the
management platform and
establish development strate-
gies. The portfolio included
six retirement homes, a long-
term care centre and two de-
velopment projects. Since
then, those two developments
have come to completion, and
the investors divested from
the long-term care residence.
It’s a positive sign of good
success, and
Seasons’ focus
on high qual-
ity healthcare
in their retire-
ment communi-
ties, especially
in the area of
nursing, is ele-
vating Seasons’
profile exponentially. “We
feel it is necessary to have
more skilled nursing staff in
the building while our resi-
dents are awake,” said Laval-
lée, who mentions that regis-
tered staff are on hand from 8
a.m. to 11 p.m.
By taking a page out of the Dis-
ney Corporation’s handbook,
Seasons has internalized and
centralized their recruitment
process. They want to bring
in exceptionally skilled team
members but they also look
for something more.
“From a vocational point of
