In honor of Tutera’s recent Founder’s Day, I want to talk about something simple.
The world feels like it’s moving faster than it ever has. New technologies, opportunities, pressures, expectations and no shortage of people ready to tell you that if you are not constantly reinventing and rethinking, you are falling behind.
Sometimes that is true. In some areas, constant reevaluation is exactly what is needed. But not in everything.
Some things you get right the first time.
Our Founder, Dr. Dominic “Doc” Tutera, MD, and his wife, Lucille, understood this. They built our company on the foundation of a few core ideas, and they got them right the first time.
I call these principles Doc & Lou’s Secret Sauce:
Trust
Trust is the ingredient that holds everything else together. Trust is not a line in a brochure. Trust is what happens when a family just like yours hands you the care of someone they love more than anything in the world, and you treat that responsibility like it is your own mother or father. Trust is what happens when you say you will do something, and you do it. Not when it is convenient or when someone is watching. Every time.
Respect
Doc respected everyone he met. He respected his patients by giving them his full attention and his employees by treating them like family. For Doc, respect was not a business concept; it was personal. He practiced medicine in the same community for 30 years because he respected the people in it. He did not chase the next thing or the bigger market. He stayed, and when he built this company, he brought that same respect with him. The way Doc and Lou saw it, the principles that make a family strong are the same ones that make a company strong. Respect for the people around you and loyalty to the ones who show up. That is how they lived, at home and at work, and it is how they built the foundation of everything we have today.
Generosity
Founder’s Day itself exists because of this ingredient. It was established as an invitation to do something unexpected for someone else, in the spirit of how Doc lived. Not grand gestures, but small ones. A few extra minutes with a resident who just wants someone to sit with them. A phone call to a family to say their mom had a good day. Staying late not because someone asked you to, but because you know they would do the same for you.
Accountability
Of the four, this is the one that matters most when things get hard. It is easy to be accountable when everything is going well. It is something else entirely to get it wrong, own it and come back the next day having learned from it. Doc taught his children a lesson that was as plain as it was powerful. Be accountable to yourself for your successes and your mistakes. Not to your boss or your peers. To yourself. Because when you hold yourself to your own standard, and that standard is high, the rest takes care of itself.
People like to believe that success is some great mystery and that there is a hidden recipe the rest of us have not figured out. Doc would tell you that is just not true. So, while I call these Doc & Lou’s Secret Sauce, I am certain they would not want these four principles to be kept a secret.
They are what Doc and Lou gave our company. Consistency and quality, rooted in a set of four principles they refused to abandon. A set of great building blocks that keep us rooted so we can continue to expand our offerings and care. While the four pillars of Doc & Lou’s Secret Sauce appear simple and self-evident, we must not confuse simple for easy. It has taken over 40 years to build up the discipline to follow them, and we’re still working to get better every day.
That’s why we used them as the foundation of our current values: integrity, respect, hospitality and positivity. It is through our integrity that we earn your trust and ensure accountability for all we do, and it is through our hospitality and positivity that we express the generosity of spirit Doc and Lou embodied, all in an atmosphere of respect for residents, families, team members and those we work with.
This year, we grew to 108 communities, and 39 of those communities were recognized with 132 awards and accolades, among the best in the nation. Thousands of families just like yours continued to place their trust in us.
We should never trade what works for what is fashionable. The world will keep changing, but this Founder’s Day, remember that the important things were right the first time.
The dedication and commitment of our team members is the reason Doc & Lou’s Secret Sauce still works.
I am certain Doc and Lou would be proud. I know I am.
Tutera Senior Living & Health Care, through Doc’s and Lou’s inspiration, is committed to caring for our seniors through developing and instilling trust, respect, generosity and accountability in our company’s culture and relationships.
A Few Words About the History of Founder’s Day
Founder’s Day is a memorial to our founder Dr. Dominic “Doc” Tutera, my father. It is a day to enjoy time with our family and friends and take a break over the long Easter weekend. It is an opportunity to do something unexpected for others in the spirit of generosity, compassion and care as a tribute to the way Doc lived his life.
Doc started The Tutera Group in 1985 while retiring from a 30-year career as an OBGYN. Being a physician was a way of life, not a career, for Doc. It was a life he loved in every way. It was about daily sacrifice, gladly given in exchange for the reward of serving others in a way only he could. He served above and beyond any standard of integrity, compassion and care expected by others. He lived his life by his rules of conduct, which required taking responsibility for the well-being of others – his patients and their children, and later his residents and employees.
Doc left this legacy to help guide us and honor the company that bears his name. Twenty-eight years after his passing, this legacy stands strong and proud of its culture, values and heritage – they are the very values he lived. They are the values that are essential for this company to survive, grow and provide care to thousands of residents and livelihood to thousands of employees and their families.
Doc was a builder – a builder of families, relationships, values, passions and friendships as well as buildings and businesses. Tutera continues to grow today, and for that I am certain he would be very pleased. We grow to adapt and survive. We grow not just because we can, or others do, rather because it allows us to realize his and our vision. His vision requires that we not only meet the standards others set for us but also strive to meet the standards we set for ourselves. If you live by those standards as Doc did, you will also make a profound, positive impact in the lives of many.
Doc instilled the same values in his company that he lived by as a physician, father, friend and coworker. Through his work, he was able to bring satisfaction and happiness to many employees, patients and residents, sometimes in small ways and sometimes in profound ways. Through Founder’s Day, we are offering something that might inspire us to make a positive impact in each other’s lives and the lives of others.
Doc was a generous man, and that generosity lives on in each of us and as an organization. We are very grateful for the sacrifice each of our team members makes to improve the lives of others and to sustain our mission and viability.
Sincerely,
In honor of Dominic F. Tutera, MD, & Lucille Tutera
March 31, 1926 – April 6, 1998
July 24, 1931 – August 28, 2023
