Age-focused group hires CEO

SARASOTA — Longtime Hallmark Cards executive Tom Esselman has been named the first fulltime CEO of The Institute for the Ages.

The Sarasota-based nonprofit, which focuses on leveraging Sarasota County's aging demographics, announced the hire today. Esselman has been with Hallmark for more than 20 years. He was most recently the director of new concept development and greetings innovation, a position that included overseeing corporate partnerships.

“I am thrilled and honored to be joining The Institute for the Ages and becoming a part of an amazing community,” Esselman said in a press release. “Sarasota County is home to a broad, diverse and passionate mix of individuals, groups and organizations that can serve as catalysts for positive aging throughout the world.”

A collaboration of community leaders led by Sarasota-based SCOPE founded the Institute in 2010. The crux of the organization is based on demographics: Sarasota is the oldest large county in the country, with 30.5% of its 369,675 people 65 or older as of 2009, according to the U.S. Census data.

With that data as a backdrop, the institute's mission is to make the county a “national test bed for ideas and technologies that will help improve the lives of the world's growing aging population.” SCOPE Executive Director Tim Dutton had been the top official at the Institute, but he said he wanted to make way for a new leader when the organization was ready.

Esselman is the second Hallmark executive in the past year to take a leadership role at a Sarasota-based nonprofit. Roxie Jerde, who helped launch Hallmark's popular Shoebox Greetings unit, was named president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County in early 2011.