Meet Ken Accardi - PodCast Host and CEO of Ankota

This episode is a little different and I hope you like it. I was interviewed on another podcast called "The Millennium Spotlight" by heralded radio announcer and podcast host, Jordan Rich.  I greatly appreciate you listening to Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars and if you'd like to know a little bit more about me then please give this episode a listen.

Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars is produced and sponsored by Ankota - If you provide services that enable older or disabled people to continue living at home , Ankota can provide you the software to successfully run your agency. Visit us at https://www.ankota.com. 

Transcript

This episode is a little bit different. I was interviewed on a different podcast called the Millennium Spotlight. And if you'd like to get to know a little bit more about me, your host, Ken Accardi, then please give it a listen. Enjoy.

00:15

Welcome to the Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars podcast. If you provide services to keep older or disabled people living at home, then this podcast is for you. Now here's your host, Ken Accardi. Ken's an entrepreneur. His company is Ankota, offering software that helps other companies who keep older and disabled people living in their own homes. Ken is also a teacher, a music lover, a dedicated Red Sox fan. Not bad for somebody from New York.

00:44

and an all-around nice guy who has quite the interesting background. Ken, we'll start with your connection to the Millennium and when you arrived. So we actually bought in the beginning, so we're original owners, but we moved in in January of 17. And yeah, we've been here since the start. So you were one of those suburbanites, I take it, that traveled city-bound? Exactly, yeah. So the way we tell the story is that we lived in Wellesley. Our kids grew up and abandoned us and that kind of thing. So we didn't need a big house in Wellesley anymore.

01:14

And yeah, I've had a funny story. actually, I found out about the tower and you know, saw it or something downtown. And I said to Tracy, said, know, hey, there's this new building downtown. You know, we should go look at it. And just for fun, you know, we weren't really thinking of moving at all. So we set up a meeting and came in and we just looked at each other. like, it sounds perfect. Let's just go ahead and buy a condo. So we had no intention of doing that, but it worked out great for us.

01:43

There were so many things I didn't know, like where are gonna get our groceries? And then I find out it's right downstairs and where are we gonna park our car? And it's like, oh, it's right in the building. So everything worked out really well for us in the millennium. Gotta ask you if you're a Bostonian by birth from this area originally? You know, they say you're not a Bostonian unless your grandparents are Bostonians. So we're not Bostonians by that measure. I was born in New York City in Queens. Okay. I grew up in New Jersey. Tracy was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

02:11

and grew up in the Pittsburgh area. The real reason I asked that question was I didn't know of your connection to or fondness for Filene's Department Store. Where we currently reside is where Filene's used to be. Did you have any recollection of Filene's basement? You know, I can't really say I had a lot of personal record remembrance of Filene's, but I definitely tell the story when people ask where I live, especially people who've been around Boston for a while. say, well, you remember Filene's basement? Right. Well, it turned into a hole in the ground and then.

02:41

They built a 60 story building and that's where I live. Next question, you brought it up, Queens. Does that mean your allegiance lies with the dreaded New York Yankees or have you come over to the bright side? I've come over to the bright side, yeah. So my dad was actually a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. Oh, damn bums. And then they moved out to LA as we know and then he became a Yankees fan and was rewarded for it because they won a lot of championships. I actually was not a baseball guy.

03:10

until I started doing my MBA in Babson in 2003 and my finance professor, a woman, trying to think of her last name, Virginia somebody. First thing she said in class was, hey, today pitchers and catchers reported. And I'm like, you know, I feel like business people understand sports a little bit better than I do. Maybe I should start paying attention. So I started paying attention to the Red Sox in 2003. And for those of us who will remember, was...

03:37

with quite a memorable season. certainly was. Yeah, especially the way it ended and didn't end well for maybe Pedro and for Grady Little and that kind of thing. But I was pretty hooked at that point. And actually, I...

03:51

I do have one little bit of art on my arm, is the Boston Strong Boston Red Sox tattoo here. so that was kind of inspired not only for the love I developed for the Red Sox, but also, you my kids grew up here. So Boston is home. And then the Boston Strong was kind of the post-marathon bombing kind of mantra of the city. So it's so funny when you mentioned pitchers and catchers. mean, I used to get excited when they announced that the equipment truck was heading south to, well, Winter Haven at the time.

04:20

because that's the way you grow up when you're a Red Sox diehard. I'm glad to see that you're enjoying the game and I'm glad to see that you're enjoying rooting for our home teams now. Yeah, absolutely. I guess I was a Giants fan as a kid and became a Patriots fan. actually, I would also say that probably my biggest sports allegiance these days is the Celtics. I got excited to watch the Celtics the year that had Kyrie and Gordon Hayward came. And neither of those guys really panned out all that well for us, but I got to see.

04:50

know, the first year of Jason Tatum and those guys, and they actually went pretty far in the playoffs, going to the Eastern Conference Finals and that sort of thing, and I sort of became hooked ever since. One of the really cool things about living in the Millennium Tower is you're so close to places like the TD Garden, Fenway Park, Symphony Hall. I mean, this is dead center of the city right here. Yeah, I love it. mean, Downtown Crossing is great. love, there's not a lot of times when I feel like I could just walk out the door.

05:16

can go right down the steps into the Orange Line and going to TD Garden is perfect for that scenario as well. yeah, Tracy and I, think we go to about 18 to 20 Red Sox games a year. We split some season tickets with somebody and we actually, we were most recently at Symphony Hall for a Wynton Marsalis concert through Celebrity Series and we have like Broadway in Boston and we go see all the shows at the Opera House and yeah, we really love being here. I mean, if you're not going to make it to New York,

05:45

Once a weekend to see Broadway, you can certainly get a lot of theater and a lot of culture here in Boston, and particularly in this neighborhood. I we are very, very blessed to have what we have. So let me ask you a little bit about your professional life. You mentioned going to Babson, getting a master's and so forth. You're also a teacher yourself. What do you teach? Yeah, actually, well, I guess my primary job is that I run a software company, and that's called Ancoda. We make a software application.

06:11

for caregiving companies that provide either home care or adult daycare for older or disabled people. And so as a software engineer and a geek in that way, at Babson I teach one class a semester and it's called Digital Technologies for Entrepreneurs. So I basically teach business students how to hopefully make the world a better place using technology. Sounds like you're doing that with your company, with Encoda. It's such a growing need for this kind of service as the population ages. Yeah, it is.

06:39

crazy the demographics. I mean, some amazing things have happened in the world. I think the retirement age being set at 65 was set at a time when men were living to 71. And now everybody's living into their 80s. And I read an article that said if you're born in the 2000s, you have a 50-50 chance of living to 100. And so it's really kind of a different world. But at this point, we look at the number of people who are 80 years old,

07:10

today in the U.S. and I think that's a good measure for the size of the home care market, the people who are going to need care. That number is supposed to go up about 400 percent in the next 20 years because we have the baby boomer generation and then everybody living longer and living higher quality of life. So there's going to be a lot of demand. And yeah, it is nice to be in a business where you're hopefully doing well in the business by doing good and helping people. Have you found in the community here people of like

07:39

mind and value in terms of the kinds of projects you're working on. I I meet so many people doing this and meeting them at coffee and all that. And I'm always impressed and amazed at the wealth of knowledge and the desire to make the world a better place. I sound a little corny saying that, but tell me a little about your reflections on that. Yeah, I I have enjoyed meeting so many people here in the building. And I am the kind of guy who comes down to coffee and tries to be a connector and say hi to everybody.

08:08

Really everybody I've met has amazing stories and we're hearing a lot of them on the podcast, so thank you for doing that. But just hearing where people have been, what they've overcome, what they're achieving in their lives is incredible. As a matter of fact, I am a first time entrepreneur, my undergraduate degree was in engineering and then I had a computer science degree.

08:33

Going on a real weird tangent, as a kid I was unable to walk until I was 14 years old because of just something that was born in my left leg. So I kind of grew up with all the strikes against me. I kind of had this injury, walked on crutches, introvert math kid and that kind of thing. And it took me until later in life to actually, I guess if I were looking at my younger self and said, hey, someday I'm gonna run a company and things like that, it probably wouldn't have.

09:04

naturally in where I thought I would go. And there's so many people here who can help you with so many things too, and they're so willing to do so. I don't even want to mention names because there's so many, but I mean, some people just help me with mindfulness and positive attitude, and some people just help me with business things. So it's really great, it's a great community. Well, that was something I didn't know about you at all. I didn't know about your background in terms of your childhood and what you were dealing with physically.

09:31

Was there a condition that had a name that caused your Yeah, I was born with something called a pseudoarthrosis of the tibia, which basically meant that the main bone in my lower left leg was not kind of a perfectly formed bone. And I guess when I was around 11 months old and tried to stand up, it broke and it wouldn't heal itself. And they tried a whole bunch of surgeries and took some bone out of my hip to try to get it to fuse and all that kind of thing. So ultimately, my...

10:00

You know, they kind of looked at it and when I was right around getting into middle school, they said, you know, we don't think this is going to fix itself. I think maybe we should consider amputation at that time. And my mom was like, you know, I think you should hold off. And, you know, kind of miraculously, it did, you know, eventually heal. And so now I, you know, I walk on two legs. left, my left leg was two and half inches shorter than my right leg at the time. have a size eight left foot and a size 10 and a half right foot, but.

10:29

You know, other than that, I could walk. have a little bit of a limp and... No one would ever notice as far as I'm concerned. I don't pay attention to things like that anyway, but it's a testament to your grit and determination to make something of yourself and to achieve when you're facing pretty tough odds. You know, it's a tough thing to go through, particularly when you're a kid and everyone else is throwing the baseball around or taking their bike out and all that kind of stuff. So good for you for making it past that and healing. Yeah, well, thank you so much. And your mom too for deciding not to...

10:59

Let the amputation take place. Yeah, thanks to Bob for sure. Absolutely. Let's talk about your family. Very proud of your kids. You said your kids abandoned you and that's why you moved to this beautiful place. I know one of your sons is involved in kind of the business I'm involved in. Want to share some of that? Yeah, so we have a daughter named Casey and a son named Ryan. So Casey, I guess, is 32 and Ryan is 26. And so we'll talk about Ryan first. So he's a crazy good musician. He's one of these guys who...

11:29

If you ever watch, for example, Jimmy Fallon and the Roots could play pretty much any song together perfectly at any time. Ryan's that way. doesn't matter if he has a guitar in front of him, a piano, a bass, drums, vocals, all that kind of thing. He plays in about five or six bands. Both of my kids actually live in Brooklyn, about 10 blocks apart from each other. And he has two day gigs, so he's more of a gig economy guy. On Fridays, he works in a Grammy-winning

11:58

recording studio and then on I think it's Monday through Thursday and Saturday he works in a piano shop and he you know works on pianos a lot of times he's restoring like the classic 1970s Fender Rhodes pianos and that type of thing. Now is this a genetic trait that runs in the family? Well actually I think he got the musical gene from my side more so than

12:26

and Tracy Side, so I am a pretty good trumpet player. I also taught myself to play piano not incredibly well, but I guess I tell people Elton John taught me how to play the piano. I, yeah, so I'm pretty good at music, but definitely nowhere near at his level. What about your daughter? Yeah, so Casey's an interesting story as well. So she went to school at Mount Holyoke and she was the student government president there.

12:55

And I was talking to her, maybe junior or senior year of college. said, what do you want to do? And she said, well, I think I want to be university president. And I said, oh, that's interesting. How do think you should get there? And she said, well, I think I should do fundraising first. So she thought it out pretty well. Her first job, she worked at Amherst College in advancement and loved it and really outperformed in that job. And she got a little board of Western Mass and she took a similar job at MIT.

13:23

And, but there, you she went from a department of maybe six people in fundraising at Amherst to a very big fundraising department at MIT. I guess, you know, the lane that she was staying in and performing very well in was a, you know, pretty small lane and she was a little bored and she actually got interested in politics and she, she actually ran into Ayanna Presley who many of us might know.

13:49

you ran for the house representatives and she sits in the seat that john f kennedy said it's right in cambridge one time a lot of a long time ago and uh... so casey the time lived in summerville and i i was running against mike capuano who was from summer will at the summer villain had run uh... one for ten terms and uh... so i i saw casey's talent and said hey could you help me uh... and you know we only our maps is willing forty two percent of summerville

14:18

But, can you help us get out the vote? And Casey did that. And long story short, the night of the election, she went to a couple of polling stations and the first one said you won 72 percent. And the other one said, you know, she had won 69 percent. And so she knew they were going to win the election. And so so that was that. But then a few weeks later, she literally got a phone call from Elizabeth Warren and said, I was talking to Diana Presley and and I want you on my team.

14:46

So Casey spent some time, so she worked on Elizabeth Warren's campaign. And then when Elizabeth Warren dropped out, she took over the Biden campaign and she was actually responsible for the Madison, Wisconsin area in the vicinity. And, you know, not making any political statements one way or another, just proud of my child. Yeah, no, I understand. that's what she is. She swung the election and sounds like she's got her eye on the ball and knows what she wants. Yeah, exactly. I mean, so.

15:14

So that was that. But interestingly, after that election, she said, you know what? I don't think I could change the world as much as I thought I could in presidential politics. So she asked us if we could help her go back to school. She now has a master's in social work. And she does kind of therapy in New York. She does kind cognitive behavioral therapy services and works in a company that actually helps people with eating disorders right across from the.

15:42

Empire State Building. Very, very ambitious and very helpful people. Your son is making people happy with music and your daughter's making people well. That's great. Congratulations. There we go. And let's talk about your lovely wife for a second. I know she travels a lot. Yeah, well, Tracy actually recently retired, which means that she went from having a big job to now she only has like three small jobs. So that kind of thing. So Tracy.

16:10

I think we should have her on the Millennium Spotlight herself. But she's had an incredible career in the world of medical devices. And it's kind of interesting. I listened to Joe's podcast. One of his big projects was bringing the first surgical robot into the market. Well, Tracy brought the second surgical robot into the market working for Medtronic. she also was the first. She brought the first digital beam former for ultrasound into the market.

16:40

Back when people used x-rays for cardiology, there was essentially a huge TV camera on the x-ray machine, and that's now been replaced by a microchip that's the size of a pizza box, and Tracy led the team that brought that technology to market. And she also worked on the team that has changed breast cancer detection to, you know, instead of just taking a two-dimensional x-ray that they now do.

17:06

what they call tomosynthesis. So it's kind of like a CT scan where they're able to make a 3D reproduction of the breast. And that is, you've been proven to give you a 50 % more, better chance of finding cancers early. So she's had an incredible career and she's actually right now working on a medical device for urinary incontinence for women. So yeah, so I mean, she's the, I'm definitely the trailing spouse here. But you're very proud. That's the thing. For sure.

17:36

I can see it your face and I can hear it in your voice. I want to talk to you a little bit about another member of the family. You've got a dog that is so sweet and there's a story here, I guess, about this dog. Yeah, so I think a lot of people know our dog in the building. Her name is Betty White. She's a little bit distinguished by having just one eye. But, you know, Betty is, she's a rescue dog. was brought up in Texas where unfortunately she was abused.

18:06

And I guess she made it up, you know, and somebody saw her being abused and got her help in Texas. And then actually this woman brought her into her own house and then put her into the rescue program, which brought her up here. And literally, Tracy and I have a house in Narragansett in Rhode Island. And literally our dog was walking down the street in front of our house with a woman walking a pack of dogs, I guess, you know, with a rescue shelter down there.

18:36

and Tracy saw this dog and said, you know, we have to have this dog. So we named her Betty White. We adopted her right around when Betty White passed away in 2022. And we thought that would be an appropriate name for her. And Betty White was a big animal lover. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, our dog Betty White is. She's the sweetest dog ever.

18:56

She's really kind of changed our lives to some degree. It's just unbelievable how I never had a dog before and just how much that dog loves us. I remark on that because I see you often walking with her and walking her. She's probably walking you half the time. Probably. Whenever I'm in the elevator, and you and I are the elevator a lot together it seems, we're always up and down, I look at this beautiful little animal and I think about what life she had prior and you just described it.

19:26

and what life she has now and it's a nice story, it really is. Yeah, she's a Boston girl now and yeah, she's loving life in New England. She even seems to like the snow now, so. Well, that's a step in the right direction because there's a lot of it, they say, although not as much this year. So what do you like to do when you're not schmoozing and you do a lot of that, as I do in the building? Hobbies, interests, anything else you'd like to share? Yeah, so I really enjoy music and we enjoy travel and so.

19:52

I guess it's kind of funny with Tracy retiring, we talked to our financial planner and he said, you know, your 60s are your go-go time and your 70s will be your slow go time and that kind of thing. we're going to try to do a whole lot more traveling. We went on a cruise in January. We're going to go to Napa Valley in March and then we're doing a tour of Ireland in May. Oh, you'll love that. That was one of my favorite trips ever. Yeah. So we have a lot planned and then we'll probably spend most of the summer as we do in Narragansett. All right.

20:21

Are we connected to any famous restaurants or any famous Italian families creating great tomato sauce? I've got to know. Yeah, you know, mean, so my dad's family is Italian. My mom's family is Irish. There is, I definitely see around Boston a truck that says a car defined foods and they provide, you know, nice specialty foods into a lot of the.

20:48

good Italian restaurants and that kind of thing. But to my knowledge, I don't know that I'm related to any of those people. But in general, when we do call for reservation at the North End, we usually get a pretty good table. Yeah, I can see that. That makes sense. Well, it's delightful to chat with you. And again, when I said this earlier, I meant it. You are a schmoozer. That's a good thing. That's a positive thing, you know. It's a radio term. And you love people and it shows. I can't tell you how many times I've witnessed you in action in a holding court down in...

21:17

the club level and having fun and involving yourself with people. And that's why this is such a fun gig for me to just spread the idea of community when we're doing this. Yeah, I think we do have a great community here. I, you know, one thing I recognize now is that when we were here in the very beginning, you know, we kind of all knew each other because it was all brand new. And then a lot of the folks in the building now moved in, let's say during COVID or.

21:40

that sort of thing. I think that now there's just so much positivity in the building. know, the restaurants doing really, really well and the club level and the activity staff is just doing great. And I think that we're really building a stronger community than ever. think the staff, and I say this all the time publicly and on this podcast, is second to none. I mean, the people are so great to work with and for. They do everything you need, anything you need, and they're so sweet. I mean, from

22:08

From A to Z, I think we've got the best staff in the city. I totally agree. Well, Ken, good that we finally did this. Get Tracy revved up and ready to go, because she's got a lot to share. You got it. Have a great day.

22:22

Thanks for joining us today on the Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars podcast produced by Ankota. You can listen to back episodes by visiting 4HomeCareHeroes.com. That's the number 4, then the words HomeCareHeroes.com.