At Aegis Living, corporate values are much more than pleasant words that conjure positive thoughts. The philosophy for Dwayne Clark’s Washington-based residential senior living company is rooted in poignant personal history, and creates a culture focused on happy employees and helping people. “There’s a type of person that wants to work at Aegis and fits the criteria we look for in our employees. They’re passionate about what they do, and they understand empathy,” said Jennifer Hall, Director of Marketing for Aegis Living. Empathy is at the heart of the Aegis experience. Company founder Clark absorbed its importance during his childhood. Raised by a single mother who worked hard to support herself and her son, Clark has written a book about his mom, My Mother, My Son, and speaks frequently of the lessons his upbringing contributed to his life and work. At the heart of those experiences is a story that motivated the start of Aegis Living’s Potato Soup Foundation, an internal non-profit benefiting employees going through crises or emergencies, in 2005. When Clark was a teenager, there came a time when his mother simply didn’t have the money to put food on the table. So she ‘borrowed’ a bag of potatoes from her workplace, brought them home and made them into soup, which she and Dwayne ate for a week. It was a week he never forgot, but it wasn’t the monotony of potato soup that made the biggest impact. Clark’s mother, Colleen Clark, urged him never to forget what the experience felt like. She told him: “And when you have employees, don’t ever forgot to be there for your employees and they will always be there for you.” In practice, the concept has expanded to Aegis employees who support each other just as...