Dallin McLean

I started my healthcare career in 2026. Yes, you read that right — I just started. To make up for lost time, I'm moving fast.

My pre-career life can be summed up as follows: I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada — a good-sized city that has beautiful summers but winters that hit -40°F. I'm the second of 5 boys, which means I grew up in a competitive family. After graduating from high school, I moved to Ecuador where I served as a volunteer for our church for two years. From there, I did my undergrad at BYU in Exercise Science, graduating class of 2021, and returned 3 years later to pursue an MBA.

So, clearly none of that directly leads someone to being a nursing home administrator. So, where did it all start?

MBA 548 — Human Resources Management. While that doesn't sound like where you'd usually develop a deep desire to go into the field that takes care of old people, it ended up being the place — not because I had a deep desire to work with old folks, but rather, I had a deep desire to do some good in the world, and one day a quote on one of the PowerPoints hit me pretty hard:

“I used to think that if you cared for other people, you need to study sociology or something like it. But… I [have] concluded, if you want to help other people, be a manager. If done well, management is among the most noble of professions. You are in a position where you have eight or ten hours every day from every person who works for you. You have the opportunity to frame each person's work so that, at the end of every day, your employees will go home feeling like Diana felt on her good day: living a life filled with motivators.”

I thought, “What industry has the hardest workers who are sometimes the least appreciated and experience the most burnout?” In the US, it's healthcare. So I thought, there's an opportunity. I want to be the best manager I can possibly be — and that's where I'm gonna do it.