GREENFIELD — As Barbara Bodzin prepares to retire after 19 years at LifePath, Gary Yuhas will take over on Monday as executive director.

“I’m really excited to get to work with a group of people who are so invested in the wellness of their community,” Yuhas said.

LifePath, a Greenfield-based nonprofit, serves older adults and people with disabilities in the Franklin County and North Quabbin area.

“Gary has proven he can adapt to rapidly changing environments,” said Bodzin, who has led the organization since 2018. “This skill will serve us well. His problem-solving skills, his passion to fulfill our mission and his ability to engage with people will benefit our organization.”

After 19 years taking on increasingly higher roles at LifePath, Bodzin said she retiring to spend more time with family. She will remain on board to ensure a smooth transition as Yuhas takes over.

“We are pleased we were able to recruit Gary,” Mary Giannetti, president of LifePath’s board of directors, said in a statement. “Gary’s people-, financial- and strategic-planning skills will be put to good use here. We expect his expertise to lead LifePath into the future we envision for our consumers, the agency and our staff.”

Yuhas, who most recently served as executive director of business affairs and strategic planning in the Department of Pediatrics at Washington University in St. Louis, moved to Brattleboro, Vermont two years ago, where he continued to work for the university in a remote capacity. He said he wasn’t necessarily looking for a new job when the open position at LifePath was brought to his attention.

“As I got to learn more about the organization, it was clear to me that they’re doing very important and meaningful work,” Yuhas said. “I think a lot of people sort of underestimate the widespread need for those types of services. It spoke to me, personally, as someone who helped my grandparents live in place and die in place.”

Yuhas said his grandparents lived in a rural area, with no access to prepared meals or consistent access to individuals other than family who could do errands for them. They also lived in an area where pharmacies didn’t offer deliveries for prescriptions.

“That was something that was challenging,” he recalled.

Yuhas said he knows other people also face isolation and difficulty navigating financial and medical services.

While it’s too soon to say what direction he hopes to take LifePath in moving forward, Yuhas said he’s already spoken with the board of directors about completing a thorough assessment of the nonprofit’s programming “to see if there are any gaps that need to be filled or people we need to be reaching.”

“We’ll also take a pretty deep dive into the finances of the organization, which are certainly stable,” he said, “but the consensus is if we had additional income in some fashion, it’s possible we may be able to provide new and different services we don’t have today.”

Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne.

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