Introducing Jessica Sedgwick, LW’s new executive director
GOLDEN RAIN FOUNDATION
by Ruth Osborn
managing editor
Jessica Sedgwick is a trail blazer of the best kind. She knew at 6 that she wanted to be a CEO. She’s worked hard to harvest an impressive crop of credentials and experience to give her—and Leisure World, now that she is the GRF executive director—a firm managerial foundation.
She acknowledges that overseeing nonprofit HOAs is not everyone’s dream, but it’s a career that exactly fits her strengths and talents.
She is forward thinking, people-oriented, positive and the epitome of “cando.” A restaurant in LW? It’s possible. Technology innovations? Absolutely. More on-site resources? Yes, yes and yes. To Sedgwick, everything is attainable, and that sets her apart.
This determination to achieve results permeates how she runs her domain. She is a robust communicator, already reaching out to all factions of LW, including residents, GRF and Mutual Board members, and her staff of 170.
In her first week, she introduced herself at the Sunshine Club’s 60th Anniversary of LW dinner-dance. On June 30, she took to the Amphitheater stage to say hello to more than 2,000 LWers attending opening night concert, and she’s been to a plethora of GRF and Mutual meetings, including the annual orientation meeting June 29.
She has already begun to oversee ongoing projects and those to come, such as the fate of the Mini Farm space, and is reviewing the nuts and bolts of financials, insurance and policies and procedures.
Sedgwick is well-prepared to handle the many tasks on her desk. She is a certified Manager of Community Associations (CMCA), the only international program designed exclusively for managers of homeowner associations. She also holds a credential as Association Management Specialist (AMA). The GRF recruited her from San Bernadino County’s Ontario Ranch, where she was the general manager. Ontario Ranch is California’s top-selling master-planned development.
Sedgwick, a second-generation UCLA graduate and Bruins’ fan, has qualified to take an examination to earn a Professional Community Association Manager (PCAM) credential. The PCAM designation is the highest professional recognition available nationwide to leaders who specialize in community association management.
In her new position, she will supervise a team of dedicated GRF employees who maintain miles of streets and infrastructure, operate the LW Library, a newspaper, Security force, a 2,500-seat Amphitheater and multiple clubhouses in this mile-square community.
She has inherited many new improvements. Since 2019, Leisure World has upgraded and enlarged its fitness facility and completely rebuilt its swimming pool. It also built a second performance venue at Veterans Plaza, an Internet-wired learning center and game room in Clubhouse 3, and renovated arts studios and the woodshop.
Leisure World Seal Beach was the first of Ross and Alona Cortese’s Leisure World senior communities and nationally promoted as offering country club living for active seniors. Sedgwick represents another first. She’s the first woman to be appointed to the top post in the community’s 60-year history.
For her, Leisure World’s biggest draw is “everything you get living here,” she said, “Professional management, maintenance, landscaping, a pharmacy, health care, amenities, and still, you have your space.”
She looks forward to serving as the executive who fosters the best of Leisure World, helping the community thrive as a coastal oasis for all its active golden agers.
A trumpet fanfare preceded the introduction of new GRF Executive Director Jessica Sedgwick, who was accompa - nied on stage by GRF president Marsha Gerber at the June 30 Amphitheater concert. Trumpet players were Richard Freedman and Bruce Vircks.
David Wolfe
