After her first full week on the job, Kate Klimesh, the new administrator at the Rowley Masonic Community, said she likes what she sees.
“I’ve just met so many wonderful residents and staff and family members that I’m just honored to be a part of this,” said Klimesh, a native of Spencer. “I’ve been very, very warmly welcomed so far.”
Klimesh has lived and worked in the Decorah area since graduating from Luther College in 1992. It was there she met her husband, Mike Klimesh, and they lived for many years in Spillville, about a dozen miles from Decorah. Now Kate is transitioning to Perry.
“Last Friday, my husband and my son helped me move down,” she said, “so I’m living in Perry and getting to know all of the community and find my way around.”
Klimesh said her first job out of college was as a certified nurse assistant in Decorah at Barthell Eastern Star.
“For me it’s kind of nice to come full circle between Eastern Star and the Masonic Home,” she said. “I think the Rowley Masonic Community is truly a very special nursing home. It’s got so many levels of care available, and it’s got such dedicated, caring staff that it just makes me so proud to be a part of their team.”
Since 2006 Klimesh has been director of business development at Aase Haugen Senior Services in Decorah, and “that too is a continuum-of-care nursing facility,” she said, so the Rowley was a good fit for her.
Klimesh said she was approached by Continuum Health Care, the long-term-care management company that contracts with the Masonic Home to manage the Perry facility, “and they had contacted me to see if I would be interested in coming to be the new administrator, so in essence I do work for Continuum Health Care, but my job is to be the administrator of the Rowley Masonic Home.”
Nursing homes across Iowa face similar challenges, such as high turnover rates among staff and administrative headaches with the state’s poorly executed Medicaid privatization scheme but after her first week, the new Rowley Masonic Home administrator said she is already starting to feel at home.
“I’ll be working as hard as I can to see that our residents and our staff and our families are all well taken care of,” she said. “At this point, all we can do is look forward. That’s what I’m focusing on.”
