🔒Greeting rebuff paves Venoit’s path to Masonicare CEO

When Jon-Paul “JP” Venoit's stairway greeting to the CEO of an insurance company he recently joined was met with silence, Venoit took the step that would change his life and career.

He quit after about a month on the job and returned to Wallingford-based Masonicare — the senior-living and healthcare nonprofit for which he had waited tables in high school in its Ashlar Village retirement community — and began climbing steps over the next 20 years that would lead him to the CEO's office.

“He looked at me, looked down and just kept walking,” Venoit recalled of that fateful day. “By the time I got to the bottom of the stairs, I said, 'I'm done, this doesn't match my values, this doesn't match who I am.' ”

That encounter shaped much of Venoit's leadership style, which is high-energy, open, engaging and sharing. He strives to be a mentor and mold leaders.

“Many of the staff that have been promoted, it's because their personality — you've been able to mentor them and mold them to help them grow,” said Venoit, 43, who became president and CEO on Oct. 1.

Venoit hires for personality first, knowing he can train skill, but not the former. Personality is key for an organization that helps seniors along a continuum of care, including independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing, inpatient geriatric acute care and psychiatric care, home health and hospice, and at-home services of homemakers and personal-care attendants.

Masonicare's main campus is in Wallingford. It also has a campus in Newtown and just opened an independent-living facility in Mystic. It has parcels in Mansfield and Oxford for future expansion, plus branches and services statewide.

Masonicare has about 2,700 employees and posted operating revenue of $168.8 million in fiscal 2015.

About $106 million in revenue bonds were recently issued on behalf of Masonicare, largely to refinance variable-rate debt at a fixed rate and facilitate future capital projects.

As CEO, Venoit said it's key to look ahead and be innovative.

“People sometimes think this industry is slow-paced; it's actually the opposite,” he said. “If it's slow-paced, there's a reason why, ... you're going out of business.”

Venoit seems meant to lead Masonicare. He met his wife, Christine, when the two waited tables at Ashlar Village. He grew up in Wallingford. Their grandparents lived at Masonicare facilities.

While Venoit returned for good to Masonicare in the late-1990s as manager of special projects at Ashlar Village after his brief insurance gig, he never really left, having worked weekends on marketing projects there and where he also had managed dining services after graduating from the University of Hartford in 1996.

The head of Ashlar Village had conditions for Venoit: Learn the business and “really put your heart and soul” in it, he said. “So I really kind of embraced that.”

Venoit eventually became president of Ashlar Village and is proud of turning it around financially and starting Masonicare's homemaker and companion business, Masonicare at Home. Venoit's roles with Masonicare expanded, leading to chief operating officer before CEO.

Hilde Sager, vice president of residential services at Masonicare, has worked with Venoit for 12 years and appreciates his mentoring and leadership, calling him humble, hard-working, dedicated and inspiring.

“I have so appreciated the encouragement, the push that he does, but he does it in such a kind and encouraging way to push you, to grow and to learn and to not be afraid of change,” Sager said.

He's also inspired trust in his leadership, she said. “I really always believe he will do the right thing and he's proven that to me so many times,” Sager said.

Venoit, who has two boys, 11 and 14, is an avid New York Yankees fan and witnessed Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit and last game. He enjoys his two Siberian huskies and two Ford Mustangs, a 2002 and 2007.

“I do like to play with my cars,” he said.

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