• Job: Executive director, Winnwood Retirement Community, Marietta

KARL W. RITZLER/Special (ENLARGE)

Cece Medworth (left) plans her strategy as Carol Meyers looks on during a game of bridge at Winnwood Retirement Community.

KARL W. RITZLER/Special (ENLARGE)

Carol Meyers

• What I do: "Who wouldn't want to work in a place full of grandmas?" asks Carol Meyers, executive director of the Winnwood Retirement Community in Marietta.

She does, and she loves it.

Meyers is in charge of the 152-unit facility that offers independent and assisted living. While marketing is her first love — she frequently takes prospective residents on a tour of the community's three buildings — she said she also does a little bit of everything, such as budgeting, hiring, helping give personal care and serving coffee in the dining room.

"There is no typical day," she said. "That's what I love about it. . . . It depends on what's going on with all the people who live here."

Meyers often has to help residents' children overcome guilt. She noted that it's often a difficult decision to move a parent or relative from his or her longtime home into a retirement residence.

However, it's not long before many residents say their new place feels like home, she said. When that happens, "I get chills."

Meyers, 47, oversees a staff of 85 caregivers, resident assistants, dining room servers, maintenance workers, chefs, drivers, nurses and a landscape architect.

Independent-living residents are served dinner six days a week, while those in assisted living get three meals a day. At least one staff member is on site 24 hours a day, and there are regularly scheduled outings and activities.

When there's a shortage of servers for dinner in the dining room, Meyers grabs a tray and fills in. The residents "love it. . . . It makes their day," she said. "And I get to find out what's going on with them."

• What got me interested in this: "I grew up without grandparents," said Meyers, who was raised in foster homes.

She befriended the older people in her neighborhoods. "I enjoyed spending time with them, pretending they were my grandparents," she said.

After studying floriculture in college, she developed her own floral design business. But she drove by Winnwood one day, and "that was it."

She went inside and asked for a job, with the only provision that she would have time to continue freelance flower work.

"I felt like this was where I belonged," she said.

She began as an administrative assistant but soon was promoted to activities director, then marketing director and, finally, executive director.

• Best part of my job: "They love me," Meyers said. "This place is just full of love."

She'll greet residents with hugs, they'll talk "and they walk away so happy."

• Most challenging part: Getting close to people who are near the ends of their lives. "This is the last place they are going to be," she said.

Meyers and her staff have to leave their own problems at the door so that they can give full attention to the residents.

"I believe in them. People live longer when they are happier," she said.

• What people don't know about my job: Meyers and her staff are on call 24 hours a day. "If there are storms or an evacuation, we're all here. We're never closed."

• What keeps me going: "I get to come here and be with all these people. It's the easiest job in the world — and the most fulfilling."

• Preparation needed for this job: Most directors of retirement homes have gerontology or psychology degrees, but a degree isn't necessary. There is no certification or licensing requirement. Meyers said her path into the field was different. "I'm fortunate that it just happened," she said.

Still, directors are expected to take continuing education courses and are required to have certification in CPR and first aid, undergo a criminal background check and drug screening, and be fingerprinted. Those requirements apply to the staff as well.

Meyers also has taken several management courses. She studied horticulture and floriculture at Essex Agricultural and Technical Institute, an institution with both high school and college divisions in Massachusetts.

She has worked in landscape architecture and orchard and golf-course management. She has been at Winnwood for eight years, five as executive director.

- By Karl W. Ritzler, for ajcjobs. Got an interesting job that you love? E-mail your story to jobseditor@ajc.com.