President & CEO
Presbyterian Homes & Services
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Dan Lindh started his ministry serving older adults with Presbyterian Homes and Services (PHS) as a staff accountant in 1976. During his time at PHS, Dan has served as CFO, CAO, COO, led Senior Housing Partners (SHP) project development group, and was named CEO in 1998, a position he held for nearly 27 years before retiring in 2025. 

Dan was dedicated to ensuring PHS remained firmly rooted in its mission: “to honor God by enriching the lives and touching the hearts of older adults.” By taking steps of faith into an unknown future, PHS embodied a humble, understated, and strong faith-based culture that guided its ministry. The organization would strive to live by the teaching of Philippians 2:4, which reminds us to “look not only to our own interests but also to the interests of others” in all its endeavors. Today, PHS continues to maintain a culture that emphasizes compassionate service and generosity, focusing on both those they serve and those who serve them. As stated in 1 Peter 4:10, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”

When Dan began his career, PHS had 180 employees and served approximately 200 older adults on one campus. Today, PHS has grown to more than 8,200 employees serving more than 37,000 older adults at 62 campus locations as well as offering an expansive continuum of services. 

Under Dan’s leadership, PHS committed to serving the needs of older adults across all income levels and value streams, with 20% of services positioned for low-income, 20% for high-income, and 60% for middle-income individuals. Serving middle-income older adults became the hallmark of PHS. While challenging to achieve, that mission is the domain of the nonprofit and requires long-term commitment—and the resulting affordability opens services to more older adults and creates, perhaps, the highest value to society. PHS also committed to meeting challenging clinical and other care needs regardless of where and when a person needed them. That type of “open service architecture” required a unique approach to how the continuum of care was developed and how each value stream was positioned.

Dan was also a pioneer of and early adopter of developing concentrated scale models. Once a significant number of campuses and older adults are served within a relatively small geographic area, then scale can be leveraged through vertical integration to meet needs of large numbers of older adults comprehensively through innovative programs, such as: 

• PHS co-owns Genevive, Minnesota’s largest geriatric primary care practice, which partners with 62 physician and physician assistants to serve more than 15,000 frail older adults through a mobile primary care practice model combined with value-based insurance products. 
• PHS developed a suite of care services through its affiliate Optage, which provides an array of community services. Optage meals, for example, serves more than 1.8 million home-delivered meals each year to low-income older adults. Optage also provides physical and occupational therapy-home care.
• PHS partnered with Radius Living RX, a geriatrics pharmacy that has imbedded predictive analytics, transportation systems, hospice, care navigation and similar types of programs. These programs allow older adults to co-create their experience and self-advocate. In general, the focus is on a person-centered care model with flexibility for how older adults and their families optimize their journey. The emphasis is on purpose, hope, friendship, belonging and impact.  

With Dan’s guidance, PHS also developed infrastructure to optimize outcomes and fulfill its mission, including international nurse recruitment in the Philippines, which immigrates RNs and Nursing Assistants each year, the fully endowed Hugh K. and Margaret S. Schilling Leadership Institute, dedicated to growing PHS’s own employees, an endowment for benevolence, spiritual care and growth which now exceeds $120 million as well as SHP, a project development group that has developed more than 110 senior communities, 62 for PHS and 48 for other nonprofit providers at a capital cost approaching $5.5 billion. 

Dan has served on numerous boards over the years, including LeadingAge Minnesota, LeadingAge National, LeadingAge LTSS Taskforce, Wedum Foundation, Bethel University and others. He is a servant leader who believes in motivating and uplifting others not for recognition, but to follow his calling to serve God’s people. As part of the LTSS Taskforce, PHS studied international models of care delivery. They learned from the architects of systems for several OECD countries, and then modeled the potential impact of those systems in the United States. The goal was to explore how CMS and our country might address the needs of older adults in the future. Many of these concepts have been integrated into PHS’s infrastructure and approach to care. 

Additionally, Dan was committed to strong governance and effective leadership, supported by a high-capacity board and executive team dedicated to fulfilling the organization’s mission and extending its Christian ministry.

Dan emphasized that caregivers were vital to the care of older adults, showing dedication and commitment despite staffing challenges and other limitations. Throughout his career, Dan actively supported and appreciated their efforts.

Dan also provides support for providers, friends and leaders that he has met along the way, including advancing affordable housing, mentoring leaders, volunteering to help other nonprofit providers, and serving on several boards. “Collectively,” he says, “leaders in this field of service have an opportunity to make a difference in individuals’ lives and society as a whole. Very few have the opportunity to invest their lives in a challenging environment where we can anchor our work in purpose, be good stewards, and take next steps. All of that is possible, however, when serving older adults.” 

The love and support of Jeannie, his wife of 45 years, has been crucial to Dan’s success over the years. Now that he’s retired, they enjoy traveling and spending time with family and their eight grandchildren. 

Dan reflects on and is grateful for God’s faithfulness and for others who have been part of this journey. Isaiah 26:12, summarizes it best. “All that we have accomplished you (God) have done for us.”