How Civitas’ New Ceo Is Using His Baseball Roots To Lead The Senior Living Operator

Texas-based senior living provider Civitas Senior Living has a new CEO bringing a new focus on recruitment, on-the-job training and retention.

Civitas last week announced Cooper Vittitow is replacing Wayne Powell as CEO. Powell, who founded the company with Misti Powell decades ago, is becoming the company’s chairman with the move.

Vittitow’s road to the top leadership position at Civitas has been a long one. He joined the company as an intern and has spent nearly two decades with Civitas’ co-founders. His promotion is not a sudden course change but part of a leadership succession plan, he told SHN.

“This was part of a long-term, ongoing succession plan that we’ve had in place for quite a while and really, what it speaks to is my entire background in senior living being all with the same group,” Vittitow said.

Vittitow, who spent three years as a player in the Frontier League and also spent time later as an assistant coach at Texas Wesleyan University, sees parallels between senior living and America’s pastime. Like a baseball team’s players, a senior living community’s staff can work together to field plays across their proverbial baseball diamond.

Similar to how outfielders work together to catch fly outs or infielders scoop up ground balls, Vittitow believes on-the-job coaching leads to greater accountability and creates a deep bench of “generalists” who are flexible enough to shift their roles as needed.

“We have a bunch of generalists in our company, and that’s our mentality for how we’re growing and developing people, so it keeps us operationally focused,” Vittitow said. “That goes from our accounting team to our sales and marketing team, and even back to our legal team–keeping everybody focused when it comes to operations and understanding how they are going to serve the community.”

In clinical care and broader community operations, Vittitow said Civitas communities have a “thrive, don’t just comply” approach, meaning the company’s leaders and staff must go beyond state regulations or oversight requirements to meet resident needs and satisfaction.

“We’re not just talking about medication management and providing that service, or working with home health companies to come in and provide a nursing service,” Vittitow said. “We’re really just taking a different approach.”

As CEO, Vittitow said he expects to continue to work with soon-to-be-chairman Wayne Powell on high-level priorities and to seek advice. He credited both Powells for giving him a shot in the senior living industry and noted their support of him as a leader through the ranks of Civitas.

Vittitow held various roles in many departments, working from intern to executive director and eventually company president, and he has had a hand in developing the company’s operating model from scratch with the Powells.

In 2026, Vittitow sees staffing as a core priority for improving the company’s operating model, an effort that started five years ago. Civitas has an internal executive-director-in-training program to develop new community leaders and conducts college recruitment with the additional support of an internal recruitment team.

While staffing might not be a current “pain point” for Civitas, it is a big area of focus, and Vittitow sees the company’s ability to improve staffing as a way to boost operating performance and resident satisfaction.

“We’re evaluating our key folks and making sure that we’ve given them the resources they need,” Vittitow said. “One of our biggest focuses is, ‘How can we maintain that?'”

He also plans to bring in job trainers from outside the industry to provide professional coaching to executives and regional teams, creating more mentorship between employees at Civitas communities, now at just over 30 properties with a majority of locations in Texas.

The company is set to launch a program to combat social isolation and loneliness across its communities pairing at-risk or reclusive residents and staff to make sure their needs are met and they feel supported while staying at a Civitas property, Vittitow said.

“We’re going to try to stay as innovative as possible, so that we’re offering them a top-notch experience no matter what department it is,” Vittitow said.

On new growth, Vittitow said Civitas will consider its “next level of growth” in 2026, which could mean adding more management contracts.

“What the next level of growth for us looks like is we’re going to explore some partner relationships, and I think we’re at a nice little baseline,” he added.

The post How Civitas’ New CEO is Using His Baseball Roots to Lead the Senior Living Operator appeared first on Senior Housing News.