Mary Ann Malack-Ragona Celebrates 10 Years with Alzheimer’s Disease Resource Center

For 10 years, Mary Ann Malack-Ragona has worked for Alzheimer’s Disease Resource Center (ADRC) as a tireless advocate for those suffering with Alzheimer’s Disease, as well as their caregivers and their families. Long before joining ADRC, she was caring for loved ones with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

February 3 marks Ms. Malack-Ragona’s tenth anniversary with ADRC. Since joining ADRC as its Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director, she has seen the organization expand its services across Long Island and the New York metropolitan area to help tens of thousands of local residents who have Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias.

Her first experience with caring for someone with dementia was at the age of 21. Shortly after she was married, Ms. Malack-Ragona had to care for both her mother-in-law, who contracted cirrhosis of the liver, and her father-in-law, who was recovering from open heart surgery. “After the surgery, we noticed significant changes, the most prominent of which was short-term memory loss,” she said of her father-in-law. “We discovered that he suffered from vascular dementia, which was caused as the result of a lack of blood flow to the brain.”

When her mother-in-law passed away in April 1970, Ms. Malack-Ragona continued to care for her father-in-law, who was still living alone. After several years of long-distance caregiving, she and her husband sold his house and moved him in with them. “We provided him with in-home care but, as his dementia began to progress, we were no longer able to provide quality care in the home, and we had to move him into a nursing home,” Ms. Malack-Ragona said. He stayed at the Port Jefferson Nursing Home until his passing in 1985.

Ms. Malack-Ragona initially worked in the petroleum industry. From 1977 to 1992, she was Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Vinmar Service Station, Inc., where she developed marketing and training strategies with the leading petroleum suppliers. She was also elected the first female president of the Long Island Gasoline Retailers Association, a local trade organization representing service station dealers from Long Island City out to Montauk. In 1992, she became the local association’s Executive Director & Chief Administrative Officer.

Prior to joining ADRC, Ms. Malack-Ragona was Executive Director for the New York Association of Temporary & Staffing Services, Inc., in which she represented the staffing industry statewide. She also worked for UnitedHealthcare, where she was responsible for the development and implementation of the company’s healthcare products. She held several positions in the company, including Product Manager/Project Coordinator for the Tri-State area.

In 2002, she responded to a classified ad for ADRC, which was looking for a CEO. “The board members were looking for someone who could restructure the organization,” she said. “When I first came into the agency, there were no full-time employees. There was only a part-time office manager and a volunteer care consultant. Meanwhile, I was getting numerous phone calls from families asking for help.”

When she met with the board for the first time, the major focus of discussion was raising funds to keep the doors open, she recalled. However, Ms. Ragona took a different approach. “I said, ‘Yes, we do have to raise funds, but, more importantly, we need to provide programs for our families who so desperately need our help,’” she said. Ms. Malack-Ragona first hired a care consultant, then a program director to implement in-service training for the caregivers. Meanwhile, she began visiting families whose loved ones were suffering from Alzheimer’s.

In 2006, Ms. Malack-Ragona also created a training curriculum with Robin Lombardo, who taught courses in gerontology, health concepts, therapeutic recreation for disabilities and Alzheimer’s and related dementias.  Since then, the program has successfully trained over 500 professional caregivers. Ms. Lombardo joined ADRC in 2012 as its Vice President of Programs and Services.

At the age of 44, Ms. Malack-Ragona decided to go back to school. She attended St. Joseph’s College in Patchogue, where she graduated with honors with a degree in Organizational Management and a minor in Human Resources Management. “When I registered for my classes, I noticed there was no organizational management degree offered at the college and yet the curriculum being offered was broad enough to meet the requirements for such a degree,” she said. “We petitioned the administration to offer a degree in Organizational Management and this was approved very quickly. We now had the best of both worlds — an Organizational Management degree with Health Administration electives.” A few years later, she received a Master’s of Business Administration from LIU/C.W. Post College of Management and Business in Old Brookville.

Under her leadership, Ms. Malack-Ragona has relocated the Ronkonkoma office to a more spacious facility in Bay Shore. The new center has training classrooms, an on-site research library with plans for an adult daycare center. The location also offers a beautiful Serenity Garden for individuals with dementia and/or Alzheimer’s Disease and their families. The ADRC’s office is also home to the Mickey & Felice Neuwirth Care Center. The Neuwirths had a personal connection as they had a loved one who suffered from Alzheimer’s and have been providing financial support since 2004.

In order to help East End residents who are suffering with Alzheimer’s Disease and their caregivers and families, ADRC opened a satellite office in Southampton in 2011. That same year, Ms. Malack-Ragona launched ADRC’s first East End Walk to End Alzheimer’s. The initial event was so successful that, the following year, she launched two East End Walks — one in Riverhead and one in Westhampton Beach. Both Walks exceeded their goals of $25,000 each. In 2013, ADRC will again host three Walks — one in Old Bethpage, one in Riverhead and one in Westhampton Beach.

Other events produced by ADRC include the Annual Physician’s Outreach Dinner and the Annual Alzheimer’s Disease Education Conference and Expo. These two events work hand in hand to provide information to those in attendance about Alzheimer’s Disease, the causes, the potential treatments for the disease and an update on the latest research advances. They will also learn how to care for those with Alzheimer’s and how to protect their loved one’s financial assets. The goal of both of these events to get up-to-date information about dementia and/or Alzheimer’s Disease into the hands of informal and professional caregivers in an effort to ensure quality care.

ADRC is also expanding its reach beyond Long Island and into the metropolitan New York area. “Care and consultation, information and referral, education and support groups will continue to be the core services we offer here at ADRC, as we continue our quest to ensure quality care for everyone suffering with a diagnosis of dementia and/or Alzheimer’s Disease,” Ms. Malack-Ragona said.

For more information about ADRC, please call Mary Ann Malack-Ragona, Executive Director/CEO, at (631) 820-8068 or visitwww.adrcinc.org.