Most people need time — and experience — to find their career, but new Marquis Hope Village Administrator Jordan Turner is not most people.
The 27-year-old Hermiston native was still in college at Oregon State University and contemplating a variety of careers in the medical field, when he took on a senior internship with Marquis Companies, which owns and operates the assisted living, rehab and memory care facilities in Canby.
While many long-term care providers offer internships to interested students, Turner said that Marquis’ program is particularly robust, encompassing a full college semester and giving interns a deep, behind-the-scenes look at every aspect of running a facility, from patient care to cooking and cleaning.
Turner admits he had never considered or planned on going into long-term care.
“Honestly, I started in public health and health care management with the goal of ending up in a hospital setting, like hospital administration,” he said. “Long-term care wasn’t on my radar, not even a little bit.”
He had a lot of misconceptions about nursing homes and the long-term care industry, but that experience changed his mind — and the course of his career — forever.
“It was nothing like I thought it was,” he said. “Especially, the post-acute rehab, where we get to see people come in with a wheelchair and walk out on their own because of the therapy services. It was really amazing.”
After just the first week of the internship, Turner was hooked.
“I was like, ‘This is the industry and these are the people I want to work with,” Turner recalled. “I wanted to work here and be around people that were happy to see me every day.”
With a laugh, he added, “I literally called up the recruiter and said, ‘Whatever I need to do to get in with Marquis, I want to do it.'”
He’s been with Marquis ever since, working his way up from human resources and staffing at the company’s Wilsonville location. He actually trained at the Canby facility when he was working to earn his administrator certification before serving three years as the head of the Marquis facility in Oregon City.
Now, he’s back, stepping into the administrator role at Marquis Hope Village just two weeks ago.
Turner said he loves Canby, a community-oriented small town with rural sensibilities that reminds him mightily of his own hometown of Hermiston in eastern Oregon.
“Growing up in that small town, community is something that’s really important to me,” he said. “And the community here in Canby is awesome. I love being able to go to Cutsforth’s and people recognize me. You just don’t get that everywhere you go.”
He also is thrilled to be joining a strong team at Marquis Hope Village, which has been carefully cultivated over the years.
“At Marquis in general but especially here at Hope Village, we have a lot of longevity, from the department heads to the nursing heads and CNAs,” Turner said. “We have a lot of people that get hired on and just work here their entire careers. To be around that is really cool.”
As administrator, Turner is responsible for overseeing the facility’s day-to-day operations and ensuring compliance with state and federal laws governing skilled nursing facilities — no small feat, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“At the most basic level, I’m here to make sure that we’re sticking to the rules we’re supposed to follow,” he explained. “But then, at the same time, I’m here to support the staff and make sure we’re taking the best possible care of the residents.”
After six years, Turner has not lost one bit of that passion that hooked him during the first week of his undergraduate internship.
“I get to come to work every single day knowing I’m going to make a difference, and I think that’s pretty rare,” he said. “Not everybody gets to make a difference every single time they walk through the door, and I get to.”
