The phone rang just before midnight, in the midst of an arctic cold front that gripped the Midwest: A domestic water line at a Bickford branch had frozen and burst in the frigid conditions. As soon as the call came in, Del Wood hopped in the car and drove two hours through the icy night, all the while on his phone coaching the onsite Bickford team and coordinating plumbers and remediation services.

As divisional maintenance director for Illinois, Indiana and Iowa, Del gets the call whenever building woes strike. Pipe break? Call Del. Power outage? Call Del. Washing machine not working? You guessed it—call Del.

Del began at Bickford in 2014, working 20 hours per week in the same role. But the responsibilities of the position soon ballooned beyond his capacity. “When I started out, I only wanted to be part time,” Del says. “That lasted about three weeks.”

Today the job description requires plenty of days away from home and his wife, Denise, three grown daughters and eight grandchildren. Yet despite the demands of the post, Del gets special satisfaction from keeping Bickford’s facilities up and running for residents.

His father, Delbert, after whom he is named, passed away from Parkinson’s disease in 2008, and knowing that his work helps to keep other seniors who may be facing a similar diagnosis safe and comfortable gives Del’s work extra meaning. This is especially true when he visits the memory care areas, where he banters with residents about baseball and visits with World War II and Korean War veterans who remind him of his dad, a Navy veteran of both wars.

“That’s one of the things that drives me, that in my role I can make it more palatable for the residents and their family,” Del says. “I love my job.”