Feature Story: ‘An authentic and genuine leader’

HRE Executive of the Year gets high praise from clients, employees and peers

By John B. Mugford

Chad Henderson has always been an entrepreneur at heart, as he started his first business – selling ice cream to people on their docks or in their boats – as a 16-year-old growing up in Pensacola, Fla.

Mr. Henderson, now 44, has moved on from those days of motoring about in a 15-foot watercraft peddling frozen treats in various bays and inlets. Yet the same entrepreneurial spirit he had as a teenager remains afloat and well within him to this day, as he has taken what was once a small, regional, boutique healthcare real estate (HRE) development firm and grown it into an innovative company with a diverse national platform.

“Starting at an early age, I was lucky enough to foster an entrepreneurial spirit and internal drive, and this certainly has played a big part in shaping and building (the firm) into what it is today,” he says.

That firm is Pensacola-based Catalyst Healthcare Real Estate, of which Mr. Henderson is the founder, CEO and managing partner.

Although the firm has grown plenty since he founded it in 2011, the past five years have been particularly fruitful, as it has developed about $533 million worth of healthcare facilities during that time. Since its founding, Catalyst has acquired, developed and serviced well over 4 million square feet of healthcare facility space with a total value of about $1.6 billion.

While the growth has been impressive – the firm now employs more than 50 people in four offices – and the firm has increased in stature and relevance in the HRE industry with its national platform, Catalyst has also evolved into more than just a real estate development firm focused on healthcare.

In fact, Catalyst’s list of service offerings include not only development, acquisitions, leasing and property management, but also strategy, for which the firm can provide an ambulatory care network “road map,” an evidence-based approach to site selection, master planning, demand analysis and market assessment, and a wide range of strategic planning.

It is because of Catalyst’s recent success and Mr. Henderson’s leadership of the firm that he recently received the 2023 HRE Executive of the Year award from HREI™.

‘This is a team award’

Mr. Henderson accepted the prize Feb. 28 during a lunchtime presentation of the HREI Insights Awards™ during the 2024 Revista Medical Real Estate Investment Forum (MREIF), held at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. The awards are presented annually by Plymouth, Minn.-based HREI, and are the only national awards dedicated to recognizing excellence in the areas of HRE development and executive leadership.

The HRE Executive of the Year Award, as well as the awards in seven development categories, are voted on by the HREI Editorial Advisory Board, whose 30 or so members represent many of the top firms in the HRE sector.

“I am certainly humbled and honored to receive such an acknowledgment,” Mr. Henderson told the audience upon receiving the award. “While this is directed to me, in my eyes, this (most certainly) is a team award. I am super proud of my entire Catalyst work family. Collectively, the team and I have worked extremely hard to build a purpose-driven organization that has always sought to align with the mission, vision and values of healthcare.”

In choosing Mr. Henderson as the HRE top executive of 2023, one HREI board member noted: “Chad has been really emerging as a strong and reputable leader in the industry. He has made some very strategic hires in Alex Stacey (chief operating officer and partner) and Anthony Lampasona (chief development officer and partner), and this to me demonstrates a strong vision of how to be successful…

“Their portfolio is becoming one of the well-rounded investment portfolios … and will garner significant interest from the institutional market if/when it trades… Chad is a very thoughtful and personable professional that truly cares about others in the industry and those around him.”

Another board member noted: “Chad’s work in development and acquisitions, exceedingly strong health system knowledge and relationships and multiple LP (limited partner) equity providers illustrate his deep experience in the space.”

In nominating Mr. Henderson for the HRE Executive of the Year Award, the team at Catalyst wrote: “Catalyst embodies (Chad Henderson’s) visionary leadership. Chad’s entrepreneurship established it as a nationally recognized entity with a clear purpose. As a strategic leader, he has attracted top-tier talent, propelling the company’s five-fold portfolio growth, doubling employees, and opening four offices since 2018. Catalyst has been a top 100 workplace in Florida for two years, reflecting its commitment to a positive work environment.”

Forming true partnerships

Although Catalyst is a development firm “at heart,” as Mr. Henderson puts it, it has also been involved in acquisitions over the years, joint venturing with a variety of capital partners.

One of those partnerships, which was formed in late 2021 with Washington, D.C.-based National Real Estate Advisors (NREA), saw Catalyst involved with nearly $1 billion worth of investments, including a number of development projects and an initial $420 million of transactions involving two portfolios, one being a recapitalization of a portion of Catalyst’s existing portfolio

The medical outpatient building (MOB) acquisitions market has cooled during the past year or so due to higher interest rates and harder-to-obtain debt, and Catalyst has, by design, also slowed its activity in that area. In fact, according to RevistaMed data, it did not make any purchases in 2023.

“We will absolutely do acquisitions, but we are not casting a wide net and looking at every OM (offering memorandum),” Mr. Henderson says. “We might make a few in the near future, but they would probably be strategic in nature, perhaps in the right geographic area, or for a client that asks us to do so.”

Meanwhile, the firm hasn’t been standing idly by, waiting for the investment market to turn. Rather, Catalyst has actively pursued other types of opportunities, demonstrating the kind of creativity and innovation that enabled Mr. Henderson to earn HRE Executive of the Year honors. Its pace of development activity certainly hasn’t slowed, as the firm continues to embark on projects for long-standing clients as well as new ones.

Although it will respond to some requests for proposals (RFPs), Catalyst usually earns projects through repeat clients or word of mouth. That strategy is certainly paying off, as it currently has about $275 million worth of projects under construction and another $419 worth of projects in the pre-development or planning stages.

‘A healthcare company that does real estate’

An example of where Catalyst goes beyond providing more than real estate services is its involvement with Pensacola-based Andrews Medicine LLC, which was co-founded in 2022 by Mr. Henderson and Catalyst along with “world-renowned orthopedic surgeon” Dr. James Andrews. Andrews Medicine partners with health systems and other entities in providing a “brand-directed, integrated platform” of orthopedic and sports medicine services that promotes what is known as the “Andrews Way.”

“Our involvement in helping to run Andrews Medicine goes well beyond the real estate and isn’t even centered on the real estate,” Mr. Henderson says.

Of course, when Andrews Medicine forms partnerships with health systems, that can certainly lead to the development of new facilities, often orthopedic and sports medicine “centers of excellence,” with Catalyst as the developer. It currently has three projects in development through Andrews Medicine and three others in the planning stage.

“Our work with Andrews Medicine is a good example of how we consider ourselves a healthcare company that also does real estate,” Mr. Henderson says. “We typically lead with the notion that we’re a purpose-driven organization that seeks to align with a system’s or a provider’s mission and vision for providing healthcare.”

Another national provider that Catalyst is highly involved with is PAM Health, which provides a wide range of services at locations nationwide, including nearly 40 rehabilitation hospitals. Catalyst is a “preferred developer” for PAM Health and has developed a dozen or more facilities for the Enola, Pa.-based provider.

PAM’s chairman and CEO, Anthony Misitano, tells HREI that he is impressed with Catalyst and its CEO.

“Chad Henderson is a great partner and more importantly has become a great friend,” Mr. Misitano says. “He has helped me grow PAM Health with his out-of-the-box thinking and creativity. He’s very smart and is on the cutting edge of leadership in his industry.”

Catalyst has been working with PAM for the past four or five years, and during that time has become engrained in the firm’s culture and has “come to understand their business strategy,” according to Mr. Henderson.

“We help them find markets and new partnerships, and we’re involved in things like helping them perform beds-need analyses, and other areas like market discharge data,” he adds. “Our goal is to be a true partner with them as opposed to just a firm that says we have capital and can do transactional real estate projects for them.”

Forming true partnerships with clients

An executive with Pensacola-based Baptist Health Care certainly agrees that Mr. Henderson does his best to make sure that Catalyst acts as a true partner to its health system clients.

Brett Aldrich, the system’s chief operating officer and executive VP, tells HREI: “Chad is an authentic and genuine leader. He understands the mission of healthcare and he takes a personal approach to his team at Catalyst and his partnerships.”

“For the last 14 years, we have partnered with Chad on a variety of projects, and from the first project to the last, he has never changed or wavered from making sure it is a genuine partnership grounded in mutual success.”

Interestingly, in addition to branching out into partnering with healthcare clients to help them achieve their missions, Catalyst, under Mr. Henderson’s leadership, has also developed projects outside of the healthcare arena.

An example can be found on the campus of Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee, of which Mr. Henderson is a graduate. Catalyst is currently acting as the owner’s representative for the development of the two-story, 150,000 square foot FSU Football Operations Facility, which will employ a “healthspan” approach to providing services comprising healthcare, human performance, skills training and overall wellness. Besides football operations, more than 25 percent of the space will be devoted to healthcare-related services. The project is slated for completion in August 2025.

He’ll continue to explore new opportunities

While running Catalyst Healthcare Real Estate certainly takes up plenty of time, Mr. Henderson is also quite busy on the home front in Pensacola as well. He and his wife, Brooke, have four children between the ages of five and 13, and they spend a good share of time taking them to, and watching, a wide variety of activities and youth sports.

In looking back on his time in the HRE industry and his building of Catalyst, Mr. Henderson, upon receiving his award in Pasadena, noted that he wanted to “acknowledge and thank all of my industry friends and peers, as I continue to be amazed by how unbelievably awesome this industry is.

“Fifteen years ago, this industry welcomed me with open arms,” he added. “They encouraged me, they challenged me, they guided and believed in me, and honestly, they gave me opportunities that I probably never deserved. For that, I’m forever grateful.”

Mr. Henderson concluded, “For all the newcomers in the room, welcome. I hope you all can experience all of what I’ve experienced. Thanks again, as this award means a ton to me and to all of my Catalyst teammates.”

As for his own future and the future of Catalyst, he says he plans to continue to explore new opportunities and “sharpen our expertise not just in real estate, but in adding value to our clients and the whole healthcare model.”

Now, nearly three decades removed his stint as an aquatic ice cream entrepreneur, it would appear that Mr. Henderson still has no qualms about rocking the boat. ❏