Gary Hammond, One of Senior Village’s Founding Fathers | Community

Gary Hammond, the co-founder of Senior Village (SV) in SaddleBrooke is a SV Pathfinder who keeps on contributing. When his co-founder Dick Fleming said, “I have an idea I want to discuss with you,” he got Gary’s attention. The idea was neighbors helping neighbors. Fleming, who unfortunately died six months later, knew that if he wanted to get something done, Gary was the person to call.

A small-town Massachusetts kid, Hammond was lucky enough to attend Andover Phillips Academy and Princeton on full scholarships. Fearing he’d starve if he had to support himself as a chemical engineer, he went on to Harvard Business School then “grew up” at Princeton Applied Research as controller, Vice-President of Finance, Vice-President of Operations and General Manager.

Later as the General Manager of Rossmoor, a New Jersey adult community roughly the same size as SaddleBrooke HOA-1, he did a little bit of everything. As Gary puts it, he worked with wonderful, smart people who wanted to do the right thing and helped him do the same.

How did Gary land in SaddleBrooke? Gary and Anne, his wife of 60 years, visited her sister here and agreed, “What’s not to like?” especially after New Jersey winters.

Ten years ago, with a few generous anonymous donations, Senior Village at SaddleBrooke was launched. Its first service, Going My Way, brought residents to physical therapy. Village membership quickly went from 20 to 80, and in 2016, they celebrated having 100 members.

Gary led Senior Village at SaddleBrooke for over two years. He talks fondly of Senior Village’s power couple Stephanie Thomas and David Loendorf, his successor and a technical “wizard,” as well as Shawne Cryderman, another Pathfinder, who still leads the dispatch team. “We envisioned nothing like today. We didn’t dare to have dreams like that.” Hammond is rightly proud of Senior Village’s amazing response to the COVID threat with the help of Desert Pharmacy’s Brianne Spaeth.

The way things are going with members plus SV’s enhanced outreach to the broader community under Linda Hampton has Gary ecstatic. He describes SaddleBrooke as a self-selected population with many people more than willing and capable to give back to the community. “My baby had lots of aunts and uncles.”

Not only did Hammond help establish this vital organization, he remains actively involved as a SV Pathfinder, continuing to volunteer his time and expertise.