Unstoppable @ Craig

Inclusive Cities: How Lakewood is Breaking Barriers

• Craig Hospital • Episode 19

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As one of the pioneering female city managers in America, Kathy Hodgson brings a unique perspective to urban planning—one that places accessibility at the heart of community building rather than treating it as an afterthought.

This conversation explores Lakewood's remarkable legacy of inclusive programming dating back decades and demonstrates what's possible when cities prioritize participation for everyone.

We explore the practical realities of creating accessible environments—from the financial challenges of retrofitting aging infrastructure to the innovations possible when planning new construction from scratch. Hodgson shares how Lakewood balances competing priorities while maintaining a commitment to universal design principles that benefit everyone from parents with strollers to seniors with mobility challenges.

Beyond physical infrastructure, this episode reveals the importance of inclusive recreational opportunities and community engagement. Lakewood's wheelchair basketball leagues, adaptive summer camps, and innovative online participation platforms demonstrate how cities can remove both physical and social barriers to participation.

Whether you're a city planner, disability advocate, or community member, this conversation will transform your perspective on what makes a truly inclusive city and inspire you to look at your own community through new eyes.

For more information, transcriptions and behind-the-scene photos, visit https://craighospital.org/unstoppable

Craig Hospital is a nationally recognized neurorehabilitation hospital and research center specialized in the care of individuals who have sustained a spinal cord injury (SCI) and/or a brain injury (BI). Located in Denver, Colorado, Craig Hospital is an independent, not-for-profit, 93-bed national center of excellence that has treated thousands of people with SCI and BI since 1956. Learn more: https://craighospital.org

Welcome to Unstoppable at Craig

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

Welcome to Unstoppable at Craig, where we pull back the curtain on what makes healthy workplace cultures click and what happens when people are empowered to expand the boundaries of what is possible. We'll explore the perspectives of employees and leaders who have carte blanche to speak their truths, tell their stories and unlock uncommon ways of approaching challenges. I'm Dr Jandell Allen-Davis, ceo and President of Craig Hospital, a world-renowned rehabilitation hospital that exclusively specializes in the neurorehabilitation and research of patients with spinal cord and brain injury. Join me as we learn from people who love what they do and what happens when fear doesn't stifle innovation. I have been so looking forward to this opportunity to speak with my dear friend, the city manager of Lakewood, colorado, and fellow board member at the Denver Botanic Gardens and just dear dear friend, kathy Hodgson. She is the third city manager that we've had an opportunity to speak to through different lenses, around placemaking and city planning and city building, through the lens of persons who have to navigate a world that's not nearly as accessible as we need it to be, and so I've been looking forward to this, kathy, and so I want to welcome you to Craig Hospital, but also thank you for making time to share your thoughts and how the city of Lakewood, a large metropolitan area, thinks about city planning.

Meet Kathy Hodgson, Lakewood City Manager

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

So welcome, welcome. Thanks, jendell. I'm so excited to be here. It's so cool that we get to do this. It feels like a long time coming, but I'm so excited to be here. It's so cool that we get to do this. It feels like a long time coming, but let's start with a softball. Just tell us about you and I mean, you're one of the few, as I recall, women city managers in the country, or is that changing? Yeah, it's really changing.

Kathy Hodgson

So I started as a city manager in 2009. So I'm on my 16th year and back then, 13% of the city managers in the country were female and I was afraid. When they opened the recruitment, I thought I don't know if I can do this. And my dad said my dad's a Syrian. And he said Kathy, your mom and I decided we don't want you to go for this job. People are too cruel. And so we decided you need to withdraw your candidacy and I thought well, just to defy him.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

I said I'm going to do it anyway.

Kathy Hodgson

And I was lucky that I was selected. So, yeah, there was only one other female city manager in the state, so I was number two and I've really enjoyed the journey, bumpy as it has been.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

Yeah, what's made it fun for you?

Kathy Hodgson

Working with an amazing group of employees. We have 900, almost 1,000 full-time employees and that many part-time Part-time think about people like lifeguards and people working, golf courses and that. So yeah, the staff is amazing.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

So that's the funnest part. What in the challenges are interesting and fun and stimulating dynamic.

Kathy Hodgson

Yeah, I'd say one of the biggest challenges is local government.

Kathy Hodgson

Today, and the incivility local government today and the incivility Back. When I started the debates were really spirited and always respectful, but I would say in the last maybe eight years it's gotten much more hostile. People take pride in calling each other names. There's kind of a national theme here and it's tough. It's tough to be called corrupt on every Monday night at city council meetings and to feel harassed More and more frequently. I'm having to have the police department park at the top of my street just because of the death threats.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

So it's different.

Kathy Hodgson

It hasn't been like this before, and how that's manifested in our vocation is people just aren't applying for jobs in city management, especially women. Gosh.

Challenges of Modern City Leadership

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

Yeah, and at a time where it could be argued that you're needed more now than perhaps other times, as we think about both the challenges from a budgetary perspective and making the tent wide enough for all of us to fit in and make cities comfortable and wonderful places we want to be. So how do you think about sense of placemaking as a city manager?

Kathy Hodgson

To me, what's important is to have a city that appeals to everyone, and we have an enormous diversity of people. Our population is about 156,000. We're the third largest city in the metro area and the fifth in the state. So you add Fort Collins and Colorado Springs. The cool thing about Lakewood is we're really gritty in some areas. We deal with the unhoused population. We have a pretty large population. At some parts I would say our northeastern part of our town there's a real struggle socioeconomically and our job is to make sure there's opportunities for those folks, for those kids that are in apartments, to make sure there's green space so they can go and play and socialize with each other. There's also, on the other side of town, a more wealthier community that also deserves services from the city.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

So that's what's really special about our city is we've got a little bit of everything and it's cool about our city is we've got a little bit of everything and it's cool, and yet I could also see it being a challenge around how do you balance competing and conflicting priorities?

Kathy Hodgson

Right.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

I could imagine that the challenges are compounded when you're trying to think about persons with limited mobility, whether it's our older population where mobility is a problem or can be a problem as we age, if either due to physical infirmity or a lack of physical activity so that people can navigate, it gets tough. And then you add on top of that what we hear at Craig Hospital, given spinal cord and brain injuries impacts on upper extremity and lower extremity, mobility, gait and walking that can be unsteady. I'd just love to sort of start some conversation, or dig into conversation, about how you all think about accessibility and navigating all sorts of terrain in the city.

Kathy Hodgson

Yeah, so by way of context, the city is 44 square miles, so that's a pretty large landmass. About 25% of that is park or open space which we manage and the city owns and manages, so it's important to have that opportunity for everyone, regardless of your ability. So our parks need to be accessible as well as just sidewalks and streets.

Kathy Hodgson

I'm lucky in that I started my career I don't know if you know this I started when I was just out of high school, going to school at CSU, and every summer I was a lifeguard and I taught little kids how to swim at the city of Lakewood. So that's how I started my career over 40 years ago, and Lakewood's really been a pioneer in adaptive aquatics and adaptive programs. So I not knowing what I was doing, but I ran as a swimming teacher. I ran an adaptive aquatics program which was really an introduction for these folks to get into the water and to start experiencing that just being in the pool Nothing like what you do here. Of course, I didn't know what I was doing, but we had a lift.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

Oh, you did.

Kathy Hodgson

Yeah, we were one of the first ones, and so from an early age in my career I was exposed to how important that is to provide services and programs for everyone, regardless, right, so stretch that on. In the 70s, lakewood began a program for people with disabilities and we have a. For example, we have a summer camp program called Camp Paha program called Camp Paha, and we also have a program for older adults who deal with either brain or physical or spinal injuries, and I think it was every Saturday night we had a dance for socialization. Isn't that cool? I just loved that, and so that's something that's been a part of kind of our DNA, if you will for years, gosh, would you think that was by accident?

Kathy Hodgson

People smarter than me with big vision, knew that that was important. So Liquid's kind of been that hub and I'm really proud of that.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

I had no idea, yeah.

Kathy Hodgson

We also partner with our schools Jeffco schools and we have Fletcher Miller School, which was built, I wanna say, in the 50s good grief, it's so old and I was actually sent there because I have a speech defect when. I was in elementary school every Wednesday and I was pulled out of class to go through speech therapy and that school has outlived its proper use. So Jeffco Schools has decided to reinvest and they're building a brand new school for these people in our community and in the region who deal with real, significant disabilities.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

Either physical or cognitive, or both. I don't know much about I think it's both.

Kathy Hodgson

Yeah, I think it's both. And yeah, they draw people from all over the state and we are so proud to host them in the city of Lakewood.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

Oh my gosh, I had no idea. So you know it's interesting. You say that you accidentally through a summer job teaching swimming and adaptive swimming, so you just naturally came into it. It's this beautiful sort of alchemy of accident or flukes, yeah, and then intentionality. That you know. You know it's interesting. We do know and we talked about this just as we started that Craig Hospital has its roots in Lakewood up at the tuberculosis tent colony for men that was started in 1907.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

I wonder what role that might play in how you all you know, I do too.

Kathy Hodgson

That was what was then JCRS. Do you remember that? No, Right by Cosmonita. I imagine those were the minds of that day that realized we need to be a city.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

I keep thinking of your words a garden for everyone, for all people.

Kathy Hodgson

Yeah, and I think someone had that idea for the city as well.

Lakewood's Legacy of Accessibility

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

Yeah, yeah, and I think someone had that idea for the city as well. Yeah, so you know, when I think about navigating cities, talk a bit about your sidewalks and y'all's wayfinding and how you thought about it in waymaking around multimodal, even transportation.

Kathy Hodgson

Sure, and that's so important. Now we have a city council, a mayor and city council 11 of them and they care a lot about multimodal, so we invest a lot annually for sidewalks. About a couple of years ago, we hired an ADA coordinator.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

Oh, wow Good.

Kathy Hodgson

To work just specifically on accommodations. He also has done a complete assessment that was just complete of all of our buildings. We have over 100 that the city manages and so this individual did a full assessment. The price tag to that is steep. So we're looking first at prioritizing for the most used buildings If they're the heaviest used buildings first. That will be our priority, just to stay in compliance. It really matters. And in Colorado and of course in Lakewood, those snowstorms can be a real hindrance to people who are trying to get around. And when you think about multimodal and we shovel or we plow snow, we usually plow that snow into the bike lanes right Because that's on the side.

Kathy Hodgson

So what does that do for speaking of multimodal? And if there isn't a bike lane, then that snow gets plowed to the sidewalk right, and someone who can only get around on a wheelchair depends on that for their transportation. It's virtually impossible. We are trying to be really thoughtful about the consequences of our own actions and bring the parks crew, who have special equipment their forte is sidewalks and paths right. So, for them to follow along and then plow again so that people can get around. That's so thoughtful.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

It's so critical, and do you all do that, even for? And maybe every municipality is different, but I will not name one, but tell you a quick story Many, many years ago. I was still at Kaiser Permanente at the time and I was headed up to the office and it was one of those awful April snowstorms where the snow is wet and heavy.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

And I watched this wheelchair user stuck in some of that snow that had been pushed to the side but it was in a power chair, so it was an automatic chair, battery powered, and this person was stuck and the wheels were just spinning and the snow was coming down. The traffic was awful and I to this day remember this man getting out of his car literally and going and trying to push this woman so that she could, but the sidewalks weren't plowed and I went. I came to understand that it was actually the responsibility of the business owner in front of the place, and so is this a collaborative effort between businesses and the city to keep Absolutely and it takes a lot of communication.

Kathy Hodgson

When the sidewalks aren't plowed in front of a business and a busy corridor, the city will hear about it. So we'll reach out to that business and let them know what their obligations, what their responsibilities are as a business owner. It's a real push-pull and it happens with every snow season.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

We've got this thing called the Americans with Disabilities Act, which we say is necessary but hardly sufficient to actually for us here to live out fully the promise that we are promised, or certainly the intent that's embedded in the hope and resilience that we see here, which is you'll do everything you used to just differently. And the barriers in cities are not trivial when you think about the only way, given the size of some power chairs, that you can get into a restaurant is through the service door. I know you had mentioned that you all are looking at all your buildings. How are you looking at them through the lens of this accessible work that's needed? I know you had mentioned you're prioritizing, but what's underneath all that in terms of what's involved in that? For you.

Kathy Hodgson

So the biggest hurdle is the financial. It is inexpensive. Retrofitting is really something. The other issue is so many of our buildings are so old, so once you start retrofitting it leads to more and more still necessary so that we can make smart decisions financially and really focus on the facilities that really are valuable and do serve the public in a big way. So it's a challenge. I mean, that number has a lot of zeros to it and I would add, a couple of years ago I was in Washington DC and I just had had bunion surgery Right, so I was in a wheelchair. Oh, my goodness, that was so eye opening being in those, the, the I don't know if they were cobblestone streets, but just trying to cross a street in the amount of time you were allotted, right with cars everywhere and I was much lower than all of the people who were walking. I felt invisible. Wow, yeah, wow. It was really something for me and that was eye-opening for me to really experience that.

Kathy Hodgson

And then getting up on a curb, I thought and all I had was bunion surgery on me, big deal. And all I had was bunion surgery on me, big deal. And I had to get out and take the chair and put it up on the sidewalk.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

Oh my goodness, yeah it was.

Kathy Hodgson

But that's so good. That's so good to get to experience that in real life. What did you?

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

do with that story. Coming back to your job, your day job I talked to our public works folks about it immediately.

Kathy Hodgson

You know, and I just toured your terrain, park or area.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

Yeah, our terrain park yeah.

Tackling Physical Barriers in Urban Design

Kathy Hodgson

And that really touched me and I need to bring our public works folks to that park or to that area to show them what people have to do in a wheelchair or in other kind of apparatus to get around. When we don't, when we haven't made these improvements and we don't make it easy, and the sidewalks are really steep and there's not the appropriate ramping, et cetera, and there's a hose on the ground that people have to have to manage or these goofy speed bumpy things. It's wow.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

I think that would be so important for them to see it up close and personal we would happily invite them, or any to those of you out there listening any group of city planners or city managers to craig to, and I'd say for two things one is to see how we, how we train and how we orient people to adapting to a world that's not accessible, but also with the hope that it will influence how people see things through different eyes. Hopefully even perhaps we'll plan it where they have a chance to see some of the therapists working with folks around, how you actually I mean we teach folks how to get downstairs in your wheelchair. If you have the ability, wow, so which you go? That's really cool on the one hand, but is there ways to not have to do that?

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

Probably not 100% and no one's asking for that, but these accommodations. There's work to do.

Kathy Hodgson

There is work. That's really the bottom line.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

There is work to do. Yeah, the expense is not trivial. I mean, that was one of the things I remember thinking about what's the ideal accessible home, let alone ideal buildings or ideal offices or ideal restaurants, and what do they look like? And, talking to builders, I don't know why I never thought of it, but I didn't. Greenfields are a lot easier. Oh, totally Starting from the ground up is a lot easier. Do you all have any of those projects planned? Or, as you're thinking about and maybe you can't say or you aren't there yet some of the older buildings that you say maybe we don't use. We decommission.

Kathy Hodgson

Yeah, is that the word? Decommission them yeah.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

And start over at some point.

Kathy Hodgson

So we've recently purchased some property in Lakewood I think it's 18 acres to build a new shops, and that's where we can be smart and that's where we can integrate some smart ADA kind of accommodations for the future, and so it'll be expensive, but it'll be cheaper than having to retrofit. Yeah.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

I think that's, I guess, is the way to look at it. Well, you know, what's really cool about what you just said is sometimes we think about budgets through the lens of the next year and don't think long term about what's the indirect cost, by not sort of doing the investments now in any of a number of things, but this for sure too.

Kathy Hodgson

And there are so many competing interests for a really finite amount, a finite budget and, frankly, the sexy stuff gets funded first. So it's really my job to advocate for funding for the infrastructure, kind of things that aren't as interesting and but are so necessary, but how do you think about accessibility for your employees? One of my- closest friends was I worked at the rec center with him and he was in a wheelchair from high school on.

Kathy Hodgson

He taught me a lot about his life. Just critical that we provide accommodation for everyone. It just is. We do some cool things, like at one of our rec centers we have wheelchair basketball, which is really popular and not special. At that same center we have I was just looking for the name we have a new floor. Well, it launched in 2022. Get this. It's called feel the beat dance floor. Oh wow, and it's for. It's a. We did a partnership with a non-profit and it's a for auditory yes, yeah for hearing.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

Impaired, impaired, yeah and uh, yeah and it's cool. They feel the beat. And then they, they got the bait and they dance.

Kathy Hodgson

Yeah, if it's at that same center, yeah that's. I really think that's special. We also have, you know, think about little kids who have some kind of disability and think about how important it is for them to get out and play at the outside.

Kathy Hodgson

I just that's just critical for everyone to have to feel the grass, and so we have a couple of playgrounds, if not more, that are specifically around accommodating for all the different abilities in our community. And think about being a parent of a child who has a physical disability and think about summer for that family. Where do those kids go and how do they? Where do those kids go and how do they get to enjoy a wonderful summer? Well, we have a program that's called Camp Paha, and I don't know what Paha means. P-a-w-h-a.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

H-A it's the goofiest word. Oh, P-A-H-A Okay.

Kathy Hodgson

Yeah, and we've been doing this for years. It's bringing kids to go swimming and rec center and taking them to the movies, and all for special abled folks so that they can be with each other and socialize and be and not just sit at home and be inside with disabilities, whether it's folks who are neurodivergent and sensory overload, or have had brain injuries where sensory overload is a thing, or you know.

Creating Community Beyond Physical Access

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

I'd love to go to that place, but it's not easy to get around. The default is not to move which or not to leave your home, which then creates. It, compounds problems with social isolation and, like you experienced in DC, are citizens involved, or residents involved, in thinking about placemaking at all, or how have you all incorporated them beyond the yelling city council meetings?

Kathy Hodgson

Yeah, that's a really important part in any government local government, especially City government, is the public process for any new project. It's easier when it's a city-owned project, so if it's around a new park and what should the park look like? Or a new city building, it's tougher when it's privately owned Because the especially when it doesn't they're able to build by right meaning it's zoned appropriately and the public has.

Kathy Hodgson

We require them to have public meetings, we require the developer to have public meetings, but there really isn't a way to compel them to participate with the community. It's more of a an educational kind of thing. Here's what we're going to do. Yeah, so good developers listen and others don't and just do what they're going to do.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

So for the city projects, are there opportunities beyond the hearings for residents to be actively engaged in a project, especially as they think about accessibility and those sorts of things? Yeah, 100%.

Kathy Hodgson

There's lots of different ways. In fact, it isn't just all about attending city council meetings anymore and yelling and expressing your opinions.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

I should say it isn't that anymore.

Kathy Hodgson

Honestly, it got to a point where you look at the chambers and the meetings in the city council chambers and you pretty much can name all the people sitting there. Well, that's not reaching the whole community. So we've integrated this program, maybe five or six years ago, called Lakewood Speaks, and now, if you want to participate, we post all the information in advance, 10 days in advance of the hearing, for whatever that project might be, and you can submit your comments in. Virtually you can submit them so that if you're not available on a Monday night at seven because you have little kids or you're working or you're doing homework or giving baths or whatever the case may be, or whatever you're not able to get there, you can still participate.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

You can have a voice right.

Kathy Hodgson

And we'll get up to 140 comments and we make note of them and they actually, those comments, go on the record just as somebody who's testifying in person. It has really attracted a broader range. So we hear from the people who can't get there physically or for whatever reason.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

One of the things that we're just beginning, I'd say, incorporate and focus on at Craig Hospital, and it's not an initiative or program. It's really thinking more broadly about our mission around really supporting independence. And it's the reality that people we take folks from all over the country and people are injured however and whenever and wherever they're injured, and services back and smaller and sometimes even in metropolitan areas aren't comprehensive enough. So I'd wonder about pivoting a little bit about other services that you have to think about in terms of meeting the needs of a disabled population, whether it's access to community recreational, social, financial, health care, those sorts of things. How do you all think about that?

Kathy Hodgson

So we have I was looking at your gym earlier, your fitness areas, and I can think we have four recreation centers and one has a lot of adaptive equipment. So, for again, our goal too isn't nearly as amazing as Craig's, but as a community, to really try to have something for everyone. It's fabulous. Yeah, it really is fabulous, and we have so many wonderful amenities. They need to be available to everyone.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

So how do you think about other social services and access to those for persons living with disabilities at the city level?

Kathy Hodgson

At the city level we work closely with the county. The county does provide human services and has a lot of resources that we can share together. We can do so much as a city, but when we partner with nonprofits and other governments, governmental agencies, we can do exponentially more. So that's how we think about it. We just try to be as broadly thinking as we can. There are a lot of marginalized communities and some have been marginalized just systemically.

Engaging All Citizens in City Planning

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

And we need to be smart about that and do what we can to change that If I could wave a magic wand and you didn't have to think about the finances, the economics, and could just do the next really huge two or three things. I don't know what it may be. One or two things. Next, really huge two or three things. I don't know what it may be. One or two things when you dream big about what you'd wish for the city of Lakewood. What's on that list? When there's no barriers?

Kathy Hodgson

Oh wow. I can't even imagine. It's hard to imagine that I would like to be a place where people are so attracted to that they come and they feel fulfilled, living and playing and working in the city, regardless of who you are and how much you have in your wallet and how you get around.

Kathy Hodgson

That's what I would love is for literally everyone because, everyone matters and to be a place that everyone wants to be. That would be amazing. Whether it's by a big building that people can come and recreate and learn and socialize and everyone can be there, or it's just some passive park somewhere, again, that's accessible and it's a place that creates urban relief, if you will, in the middle of a concrete jungle to come and you can get around regardless of how you need to do that and have a place to be and to be quiet and to be thoughtful and, oh my gosh, and even more, we've got some beautiful view corridors and for everyone to get to experience that, regardless again of who you are, where you came from and how many teeth you have and how much money's in your wallet right, that to me would be amazing. To get to live, for me to get to be a city manager in that environment, or even after when I'm done, just to know that that's Lakewood, that would be just precious to me.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

Wow. Yeah, kathy, thank you very much yeah, we got to do this.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

I love you too. As you well know, this is the third interview with city managers of places geographically dispersed, I'd say demographically dispersed. What drives the economies are different in each one of these A small town with big, big ideas about what's to come, a town in Muskogee. Or the town of Muskogee, oklahoma, led by a city manager who's moved on to other things, by the way, but still doing city management, whose eyes and vistas were broadened beyond already big eyes and big vistas once his daughter was injured, once his daughter was injured. And then a large metropolitan area here in Colorado, who's my sense being in this state as long as I have has always which has always dreamt big, led by a woman who really, really dreams big In terms of what we get to do and what we care about, whose issues are large, large. So it's not just about communities of persons living with disabilities, but, through the lens of certainly that.

Dreaming Big for an Inclusive Future

Reflections on City Leadership Perspectives

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

I find it really wonderful that Kathy's roots, in terms of how she thinks about persons who've been marginalized, started quite by accident, through adaptive swimming, and then she inherited, as a good way to put it, a city that, from the 70s, was thinking about making sure that they had some eyes on. How do we create a place for everyone, a place where everyone feels welcome and we're navigating both the literal, physical, but also the social. The opportunities for connection through literal spaces and others is something that sounds like has been deeply rooted in Lakewood's history. I loved hearing Kathy dream and I think it's what makes her such an inspiring individual and an amazingly strong and accomplished leader is that words she used really spoke deeply to the importance of connection Connection to places, connection to ideas, connection to each other and a real, real understanding as a leader which, when this is all going back to what Unstoppable at Craig's theme is, is what makes great places and it's all about great cultures To think about culture at such a meta level that is, at the size of a city. It's wonderful to know that there's a leader who thinks about that through what I'd call a people first lens lens and an all-people-first lens who's also smart and has to balance all kinds of things, including how do you get it done on limited budgets at a time where the challenges economically that many cities and certainly hers is no exception are facing, it's encouraging to know that there will be values and some real heart-led and heart-informed and heart-infused leadership is considered.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

And then you know the reflection that these injuries as we well know, spinal cord and brain injury can impact any one of us either directly or indirectly, at the wildest and the craziest and the most unpredictable times.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

And then, each one of the times that that happens, there's an opportunity for us to stop and reconsider how it is that we are showing up in the world as leaders and as individuals, and that opening of eyes creates the opportunity for us to think even more broadly about how do we create places where all of us feel welcomed and all of us can see each other and still be seen by each other, which I think is one of the most important things that we as leaders can do and bring to cultures.

Jandel Alenn-Davis, MD

So, with that, I want to take this moment to thank Sean, to thank Kathy and to thank Mike for providing these perspectives as leaders of not small places like organizations or hospitals, but big places, like communities that are full of hospitals and organizations and other places, for sharing your wisdom and sharing your time and your talent both with us on this podcast. But I send, on behalf of those we care about, just the strongest and most important of gratitude to you for what you do back in your own communities and how you might influence city managers and city planners all over the country and the world. So thank you again for joining us for Unstoppable at Craig. It's a privilege and an honor to get to have these conversations with so many folks. I hope that you will join us next time and don't forget that you can catch us on pretty much any one of the platforms you use to podcast. So thanks very much.

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Jandel Allen-Davis, MD

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