Inspiring Good

Chris Kingsley on Empowering People With Disabilities

• Community Foundation of Elkhart County • Episode 21

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In this episode of the Inspiring Good Podcast, hosts Marshall King and Kevin Deary engage in an insightful conversation with Chris Kingsley, the President and CEO of ADEC Inc., an organization dedicated to empowering individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The discussion navigates through Chris's leadership journey, the mission and evolution of ADEC, and the impactful ways in which the organization serves its community in Northern Indiana.

Key Discussion Points

  • Chris Kingsley's Background: Chris shares his transition from La Casa, Inc. to ADEC, noting his deep-rooted connection with the organization through his father's long career at ADEC.
  • The Egg Challenge: A humorous anecdote Chris shares about a fundraiser event involving eggs, highlighting the importance of fun in organizational culture.
  • ADEC's Mission and Services: Chris explains ADEC's mission to support individuals with disabilities and details programs involving residential services, employment opportunities, and day programs.
  • Leadership Insights: Chris discusses his leadership style, emphasizing the importance of relationships, humility, and effective communication.
  • Community Engagement and Challenges: The conversation addresses the broad spectrum of individuals ADEC serves, funding challenges, and the importance of securing local support and grants.
  • Optimism for the Future: Reflections on the future landscape of disability services, focusing on technology's role in enhancing independence and societal integration.
  • Personal Reflections and Hope: Chris shares lessons he's learned from the clients ADEC serves and expresses what gives him hope for the future, both personally and professionally.

Guest Bio

Chris Kingsley is the President and CEO of ADEC Inc., where he has been leading since early 2023. Chris has a storied history with ADEC; his father dedicated his career to the organization, fostering Chris's connection from a young age. Before joining ADEC, Chris spent 12 years at La Casa, Inc. His leadership style is characterized by a focus on building relationships and fostering a culture of humility and learning within his team.

Memorable Quotes

  • "I always tell people in organizations that I lead that I believe in fun, but I'm not the most fun person in the world." - Chris Kingsley
  • "Learn to love that place before you try and change that place." - Chris Kingsley
  • "There's a lot of good in our community and that gives me hope." - Chris Kingsley

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This show is a production of the Community Foundation of Elkhart County. It is powered by equipment from Sweetwater and recorded in The Riverbend building in Elkhart's River District. Editing is done by the award-winning communication students at Goshen College, home of one of the best college radio stations in the nation. Listen to Globe Radio at 91.1 FM. Learn more about the Community Foundation of Elkhart County at inspiringgood.org You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Music is provided by Sensational Sounds. Thanks for listening. We hope you are inspired and inspire good and your community.

Marshall King:
Welcome to the Inspiring Good Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by the Community foundation of Elkhart county, which serves a vibrant community in Northern Indiana, known for its generosity and strong network of nonprofit organizations. I'm Marshall King, your co host with Kevin Deary, a veteran nonprofit CEO who now coaches others. Our guest today is Chris Kingsley, president and CEO of ADEC Inc. A nonprofit organization dedicated to providing services and support to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Indiana. Previously, Chris was the CEO of Lacasa, Inc. Chris, we're delighted to have you on the podcast today. Welcome. 

Chris Kingsley:
Thanks so much. Good to be here, Marshall. Good to be here, Kevin. 

Kevin Deary:
Chris, so good to have you. I have to ask you. I'm going to start my questions with a curve ball. Tell me about the egg challenge. 

Chris Kingsley:
The egg challenge, we had a fundraiser called Picture Possibilities, and we did that during the pandemic when it was hard to do in person events. And so one of the challenges. There would be weekly challenges in that. One of the challenges was, I think it was a humor challenge. And this is my wife. My wife. Okay. My wife, she is a fun person. And I always tell people in organizations that I lead that I believe in fun, but I'm not the most fun person in the world. So she had the fun idea of the egg challenge. And it is you have raw eggs and you have hard boiled eggs, and it's basically a Russian roulette. You're each taking turns smacking an egg on your forehead. I did not fare well in that challenge with my wife. I wore some good egg on my head for that. So all for the cause. 

Kevin Deary:
And of course, I saw that on Facebook and I was doing. I like to do research on our guests and that came up and I think I watched that three times. It was 8:12 eggs. And you just have bad luck. Actually, you guys have great luck. You both, all three of you, you two both picked three eggs in a row out of eight or 12. 

Chris Kingsley:
We didn't. Farewell. 

Kevin Deary:
No, but your look, your face was hilarious when you smashed it on your head. And your children watching. I take it those are your children. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah, absolutely. 

Kevin Deary:
They laughed and giggled and so we're just so happy to have you on the show and appreciate it. You know, you're one of the top CEOs in the county. We just really appreciate you taking time to be out with us. Tell us about your journey. You had told me about your beginnings with ADAC and tell me a little bit about that. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah, I've been leading ADEC since the beginning of 2023, and boy, when the, when the course I was leading, La Casa, Love, love the work of La Casa, worked there for 12 years. When the position at ADEC opened up, I was very happily doing my thing, but boy, it tugged at me and what you alluded to. My dad spent 40 years, his whole career at ADEC. He was one of many people who thought they had a stop along the way at ADAC and then up spending their careers there. He spent his career supporting employment opportunities for people with disabilities. And that's what I grew up around. I worked summers at ADEC Industries and I couldn't shake it back in. I guess it would have been 2022 when there was the work going on to fill the position. And here I am. 

Kevin Deary:
I felt the same tug in 1993 when I had no really big desire to come out to Indiana from New England and this one job opened up in a little town called Goshen, Indiana, just a little small club and it was like God would not leave me alone. So I applied for it and I said I'll probably have no shot at it. And that was 32 years ago. So, yeah, sometimes you have to respond to that tug. So good, good job on that. So you have a deep passion for people with disabilities and I love watching you interact in your world. Tell me a little bit about what mission, what's the mission of ADAC is and some of the programs you. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah. So ADEC's mission is to empower people with disabilities to live fulfilled lives in their communities. And the background of ADEC is. And really the background of the type of work that we do is that society has not always done well with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. They've not always been a part of our community. In fact, large institutions were unfortunately a destination that a lot of people spent their lives in decades past. Organizations like ADEC really formed with the idea that, no, these are valued, beloved people in our community, that we want to support them living fulfilled lives within the community. And so that's really the mission of adec. And we accomplish that mission through a lot of different services. You know, a lot of the people that we work with need holistic supports, holistic paid supports in order to live their best life. And so that means residential services. A lot of people that, that we serve do need 24 hour staffing. A lot of them are involved in our day programs for adults during the days. But then we also serve a lot of people with employment support. So we're connecting people with employment opportunities and then supporting that employment opportunity over time. But then we also have some services like therapy that we offer in a summer camp. That's really a big piece of the Elkhart county fabric and is a growing piece as we'll be launching a summer camp in Mishawaka this year as. Because there's just a lot of need, a lot of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities aren't able to be well served in a traditional summer camp environment. So that's. That's an important service that we provide as well. 

Kevin Deary:
So tell me about your group homes. How many do you have? How spread out are they? 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah, so we have 14 group homes. 10 of those are in Elkhart county, four of them in St. Joe County. A group home serves, in our context, it serves eight people. It's a fully staffed residential environment. ADEC really manages the operations of that house. And the goal in a group home is you're seeking to create a family like atmosphere. Our goal is never to do everything because we want to be a part of a household. And every, you know, if you go to the group home in the evening, you'll have residents of that home who are helping make supper and who are involved in the home life. And then people who live in a group home are typically involved also in either some kind of employment opportunity or a day program. So the goal in those environments is to create a sense of normalcy, create a sense of independence from. From maybe just living with your family or some other environment and. But then also to really promote a lot of community involvement and connection. 

Kevin Deary:
Tell me about your day program and your employment opportunities. 

Chris Kingsley:
The day programs, we serve about 280 people across six programs that we offer for adults during the day. The adult day programming is really there to create a structured day, meaningful day for people, as opposed to a day maybe where you would be more isolated or tech dependent. Our day programs do a lot of excursions into the community. We do a lot of volunteer engagements with other nonprofits. And then we have a lot of structured activity there at the program. On the employment side, we are, we have employment consultants, a whole team of employment consultants across Elkhart and St. Joe county who are working with people. The kind of. The referral source is the VOC rehab program. And people come to us and a lot of people that we serve are in that program, but looking for some form of meaningful employment. And depending on the person we work with, that could be four hours a week, it could be 40 hours a week. But we're looking for that opportunity to get involved in the workforce in an integrated environment where you're surrounded by a normal type of work environment. And we find that those types of employment arrangements, number one they create a lot of fulfillment, a lot of self sufficiency for people that we serve. But they also add a lot of benefit to the work culture of the the employers that we work with on that type of programming. 

Kevin Deary:
So what kind of employers are you looking for? What do you have? Are they and you mentioned full time and part time, but manufacturing, retail, probably all across the board. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah, it's across the gamut. But there is a lot I would say on the retail, manufacturing, hospitality side, even some other environments depending on the types of tasks involved. But yeah, I would say that those would be major sour for those employment partnerships. 

Kevin Deary:
In my previous before I retired in my previous office, I would walk down a block in Goshen and I would go get coffee from your coffee house. And I was just so impressed with the staff that worked there and how on top of it they were and remembered customers names and were happy to always happy to see us. Tell me who had the idea about the coffee house. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah, so that was a previous day program director who came up with that idea and the idea behind it was he calls it reverse integration. So we do a lot of leaving the day program to interact with the community but the goal there was to put that in reverse and let's have the community come in. Now we don't have at the Schutz building in Goshen that coffee shop anymore. That was a pre pandemic casualty. Still have a day program there and it's going wonderfully. But we do have the coffee shop there in Bristol that we continue to bring people in. People buy art coffee and it's a great way engage with our mission. 

Marshall King:
Chris, tell us a little bit more about the community of folks who are otherly abled or disabled within our larger community. Like how many people are we talking about that you would serve and the range of what their lives look like that you would intersect with at your organization? 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah, it's a great question. So last year we served over 90 sorry, 90900 unique individuals that would be in both in Elkhart and St. Joe County County. There there is a broad range of kind of spectrum of ability to live independently or self sufficiently among that group or us. We have a couple of our group homes would have more profound intellectual or developmental disabilities as well as medical needs. But we would range all the way toward on the residential a couple of apartments that we provide services to individuals living there who who live very independent lives but just need A few kind hours of support, maybe helping with the grocery planning, maybe helping with some of the financial management of their budget or things like that. And then on the employment side does serve a real spectrum. On the employment side, certainly you need to specialize in people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, but also people with physical disabilities who are looking on the employment side. It's a big range. And again, I think that 900 plus number gives you a sense for what we're talking about. The reality is we know that there's still another segment of people with the similar needs who are not getting served in our community. And then of course, when you look at the Elkhart and St. Joe county environment, you've got another big player in terms of Logan in the St. Joe side who would also serve a significant number of people with similar type of disabilities. 

Kevin Deary:
Adex been around 70 years. Your dad worked there for 40 and now you're the CEO. Tell me how have things changed from the time when ADEX started to. Through your dad's transition into now your leadership. Tell me how it's changed. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah, it's certainly grown a lot and adapted a lot because at the beginning there was a focus on education for school age and then there was also early on there was an adult focused kind of work skills focused group as well. And those two ended up merging to become adec. But the funding sources have changed a lot and the industry has changed a lot and the expectations have changed a lot. And so ADEC has really adapted and grown according to we stay very closely connected to industry groups both at a state level and a national level. A lot of the funding changed. It started to flow through schools. So we became less involved with children and more involved with adults over time. And then the other thing that's changed is we see a lot, we serve a lot more people in what's called a supported living structure versus a group home structure that is a little bit more independent in nature. 

Kevin Deary:
You bring up a good point there. For many years, public schools were not a place for children with disabilities. And then suddenly schools were almost were required in most states to offer education for people with disabilities. And I remember when that shift happened and what that did to a lot of the nonprofit landscape as they had to shift to follow the not only follow the funding, but the biggest needs. Yes, because school ends and parents are still working. And how does that those gaps in time there, the after school time. So that's an incredible gift that you guys have been able to just navigate that over those years. 

Chris Kingsley:
And I would say ADEC has really been blessed with great leadership over a long period of time. A lot of at a board level, at a senior staff level, because you have to be in this work this long that you have to be able to adapt. And we have to continue to be able to adapt as we try and meet our mission. 

Kevin Deary:
And I'm glad you brought up the word leadership because it's time to transition to you. Tell me about your leadership, tell me about your style and then also the values that drive your leadership. 

Chris Kingsley:
I think I really look at leadership as relationships. And so when I work in a setting, one of my big goals is to create really strong relationships with, specifically with my direct reports, certainly with my board. Those are the real key relationships. And then certainly with key, key stakeholders. But the reason I highlight relationships is you can certainly lead by virtue of your title, but I don't think it's the most effective way of leading. And I also think, I think I don't have a messiah complex. And I realize that I have a lot of gaps, you know, understanding that. I really need the perspectives of my exec team. I need the perspectives of my board. I need a lot of perspectives to make good decisions. So I really look at there's a lot of value and a lot of importance in the title and in the org chart. And that should absolutely always be a part of how you organize. But then within that, I think the relationships are incredibly important. I do think, I think self awareness is really important in leadership. I think the ability to value different personality types and perspectives I find to be really important. So those are certain. I would. Humility, the ability to listen and relationships. Those would be some things I would lift up in terms of how I approach leadership. 

Marshall King:
Chris, the one thing I think that you work hard at as well that you didn't name is communication. At one point you were still doing like a weekly message to staff that you would record your studio in the main offices and send that to staff. I'm not sure if you're still doing that, but. But that shows a lot of commitment to communicating to your staff. And I'm curious how many staff you have. And then if you could just talk about how communication also plays a role in that leadership. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah, thank you for bringing that. And that is an ongoing practice is every week I do a video. And the goal of that is to keep our whole staff base connected with what's going on at adac because we have people spread out all over the place. If you work in a group home, your world is that group home. In terms of adex. So that's important. You know, I do a lot of, we do do a lot of. We have HR bulletins and things like that that I try to put messages into think I think being accessible and I try to get out and do visit at the various sites as well as regularly as possible. But that's really important to building a culture. We are, we're a 300 and we're right now about 360 staff and they're spread out and it's 24 hour staffing. You're never going to be in the room with everybody that works at adac. And that's been an adjustment from my previous work. So you have to find other ways to try and build culture. That's been one of the strategies, the weekly video, other forms of communication. But then you also really need to build culture with your leaders because you have to. That has to cascade as well in order to do it effectively. 

Kevin Deary:
You mentioned the board of directors. Tell me about what makes a good board, how you interact with your board. It's an interesting dynamic between the executive and the board. We work for the board, but yet we have to work the board. So tell me about how that looks for you. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah, relationships is what I would emphasize again. And there's. When I think about a board, I think about these are people who for whatever reason are willing to invest, make a serious investment in adac. And that's a big deal. And so you always want to value that when you work with it. I try and have at least twice a year, go out for breakfast, go out for lunch with every board member, get to know their perspectives. In a meeting environment, you're going to get some of that. But a lot of that needs to happen in other types of interactions. In terms of a good board, you know, engagement is huge. Just being involved is huge. I think in the end, if I've got somebody, if I've got a group of people who bring some qualifications and then have a passion for the agency and truly are owning that commitment of showing up on the board, I'm probably 95% of the way there is how I feel about it. You can always wish that you had more influence or more this or more that. But the basic ingredients I think are qualifications. You need somebody who's comfortable in a boardroom and at that level of conversation, but then who loves what you do and is really going to show up for it. They're not just looking for that check on their bio or whatever. 

Kevin Deary:
One of the things that I found when I was working with boards was the opportunity to develop board members. They're not born knowing how to serve on the board. They come into a board situation many times for the first time, very passionate. It. But they really don't understand how a board functions or works or what their roles, responsibilities are. And we often find the executive is the teacher of that, yet we work for them. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah. 

Kevin Deary:
And it's a very interesting dynamic. And I think you talked about the informal communication, how important that is. If you're only speaking to your board at board meetings, you're missing the opportunity to sharpen their saw. You have to work with your board members outside of the boardroom as time allows to pass on knowledge, wisdom, and to teach them how to be a good board member. And as they get more experience, they don't need that as much, but they still need to talk with you. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah. 

Kevin Deary:
And can you talk a little bit about how important that is in working with that board? 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah, I, and I like the, the bank account analogy when it comes to relationships. You really, you invest and you make deposits in, you build connections, I think show transparency, you show candor in these settings and that, that builds relationship equity. And it's really important because you will have hard decisions at times and if you don't have that equity built up, it's not going to, it's not going to create the best environment for good decisions and it's going to create other forms of anxiety that you wouldn't need to have. And so I think that's critical. 

Kevin Deary:
And this is a mistake that new executive directors make new CEOs is they don't spend that time with their board of directors except at the board meeting and they wonder why they're as engaged. So I think you bring up a really strong best practice. If you were talking to a soon to be executive director, what are the two or three things of advice you would give them? 

Chris Kingsley:
Really embrace humility when you're going into, and there's different ways you can get into that role. You may be promoted internally or you may be coming from the outside, but really either way, if you're promoted internally, you have a perspective on the organization, but you've never sat in that chair before. So you, there's a, there's, there are things you do not know even if you think you do if you're coming into another organization. I would just say, and I would say this to anyone going in at any level is you've gotta learn to love that place before you try and change that place. So I really came In I already loved adac. I grew up around adac. But my goal was, man, I'm going to love this place. I'm going to really seek to understand exactly why we do what we do, how we do what we do, before I go in with this big change agenda or vision that I'm going to bring. So I would just say you feel that pressure. If it's the first time you're going to be in a CEO role, you feel a pressure to make your impact. But I would really encourage people to moderate that a little bit because over the long haul you will take that organization further if you learn how to love it and you learn and you get to know it real, real closely and then you start making those decisions and they. You don't have to create that it that will come to you over time. You'll have those junctures that, that you, that you cross and that you go through. And so those would be some of the key things I'd probably tell somebody. 

Kevin Deary:
Best advice I ever received as a new CEO was from a senior CEO was getting ready to retire. And he said the best thing you could do is listen. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah, absolutely. 

Kevin Deary:
And that reminded me of John Wooden, the great coach from ucla, who said, be quick, don't hurry. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah, yeah. 

Kevin Deary:
And I think you explained that really well. 

Chris Kingsley:
Absolutely. 

Kevin Deary:
Learn to love the organization, be patient. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah. 

Kevin Deary:
Listen, communicate effectively. So thank you for sharing those. We haven't talked about the big issue, of course, which is funding. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah. 

Kevin Deary:
Because it never comes up with us as CEO of Roundtables. So the landscape's changing so much. Federal, the state. But can we talk a little bit about how do you sustain ADEC? 360 employees, all those facilities? Talk a little bit about sustainability. 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah. People that we serve are largely funded and the types of services that we offer are largely funded through the Medicaid program. Number one, the answer to your question is stewardship. We need to steward the money that comes because the reality is the rates that were paid aren't sufficient to run a great organization. We have to find other funding, local funding. We need to find gifts, donations, grants in order to offer that 8x standard of services. But for us in our role, very important to stay connected at an industry level, that's critical. We need to understand what's happening at State, at the State House at any given time, because that's critical for us staying connected with legislators and then work those community relationships. But I think it's the better, again, the better connected you are and the more relationships you have, the more hopeful Runway you have, you know, you can see some of that change coming and you have some opportunity to make adjustments. But you've got to be able to make the adjustments as well because it is, it's always changing. The work never stops on that front. 

Kevin Deary:
The importance of endowment end of life giving. Can you talk a little bit about what ADEC's doing in the area of planned giving? 

Chris Kingsley:
Yeah, we. It's huge. Number one, ADEC has had some large gifts over the years and those are critical because. And we have investment that we manage and that's because our funding environment ebbs and flows. We have years where those returns on the investments are what fill the gap for us in addition to philanthropic support. So we, because we provide services to people, in many cases for a large part of their life trajectory, we do get planned gifts and those. That's certainly something we encourage people to consider whose families have been served by. Because those types of endowed funds, they create a source of stability in the midst of again, the kind of the ebbs and flows of federal funding, state funding priorities that different administrations have. So it's a big deal for us. And of course, Community foundation stewards some chunks of money that people have given for the benefit of adec and those are critical sources for us. 

Kevin Deary:
When you look into the future, you look at partnerships, the importance of employment. What do you see in the landscape 20 years from now, 25 years from now, when your son takes over as. 

Chris Kingsley:
It you think about a culture? I think that. And again, I'm going to talk in real broad strokes, but over time our awareness of the potential of people with disabilities has grown are our acceptance. Again, it's not that we're perfect, but we've seen progress on that front. I think that bodes well for 20, 25 years down the road. Then you think about technology and how that's going to trend, the way that AI is developing, the way that technology itself is developing and the potential for people with disabilities and how that could benefit them. Honestly, I'm probably not even. I'm not enough of a futurist to even env some of what that looks like. But we have a lot of people with communication barriers. I think that's an area that technology will continue to play a huge role in. I think we'll see innovation on mobility and things like that. And then we also have a society who's thinking more about if we have a public restroom, do we have an adult changing table? I mean, things that are just as basic as that make all the difference in terms of Whether some of the people that we serve will show up to, will be able to engage with a venue or not. So I, I have some optimism now. There's a direct workforce crisis that's looming. I hope technology does do a really good job in terms of creating some solutions. We need to certainly, as a society continue to really value the investments that we're making there. I think we'll see people living with greater independence, some because of technology and some just because of again, a continued kind of openness in our culture to including people with disabilities. And then I think we'll be the channel of a diminishing direct work. And how that all balances out, I think is up to humans like us to figure out. 

Marshall King:
Chris, what's something you've learned from the clients or even a client in this since you've been at a deck? 

Chris Kingsley:
I mean you're learning constantly. And I get to the, some of the basketball games, the Silver Bullets basketball games that a lot of our clients participate in and just the day program and it, it's. Where do you start? Because most of the people that we work with a lot of the time are smiling. They're, they're really valuing their relationship with you. They're valuing the connection that you make. They tend to be pretty focused on the here and now and on the present and all of that. There's just a lot to learn from that. I think that's what always jumps out to me the most, is the appreciat appreciation for little things that I miss all the time. Just that little interaction. I mean that again we, these are things we say all the time. But when you work in my world, you get reminded constantly and I really appreciate that that's. They teach the people that we work with teach me every single day. 

Marshall King:
And as we wrap up today, we always close with this question with our guests. What gives you hope? 

Chris Kingsley:
I'll segue back to what I just said. I think the interactions that I have with people that we serve gives me, it gives me hope to know that there are 360 People who show up to work at ADAC every day because of their caring for a fulfilled life for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities gives me hope when I sit down with a donor. And I'll be honest, I'm sometimes nervous when I do that. And they look at me and say, boy, I'm just, I want to find more ways to help adac. You realize that there's an awful lot of good. So speaking to the, of the foundation, inspiring good there's a lot of good in our community and that that gives me hope. 

Marshall King:
This show is a production of the Community foundation of Elkhart County. It is powered by equipment from Sweetwater and recorded at the Community Foundation's offices in Elkhart's River District. Editing is done by the award winning communications students at Goshen College, home of one of the best college radio stations in the nation. Listen to Globe Radio at 91.1 F. Music is provided by Sensational Sounds. Learn more about the Community foundation of elkhart county@inspiringgood.org you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We hope you're inspired and inspire good in your community.