Tyler Lorenz, executive director of Residents in Recovery (RIR), has earned some much-needed time off, according to the board of directors.
Stan Parke, chairman of the RIR board of directors, says Lorenz has been working steadily, taking on new roles.
Read more: St. Joe’s blesses new relocatable to accommodate growth
“What it was, is Tyler, because he developed this, like so many people, he took on every role,” said Parke. “It doesn’t matter how strong you are, when you take on every role, the weight of it gets to be overbearing. We could see this; we were very concerned for Tyler and his well being.
“We just asked him if he’d take some time, you know, take time for Tyler.”
RIR has been operating since 2018 and Lorenz has been at the forefront of developing the non-profit and its programming.
“He built the program, put it together, the programming and from sober living to the child and mother reunification, to the apprehension diversion, he’s had such a vision of all this and built these programs,” said Parke. “But you can’t be everything and run it all. It was a heavy load.”
The organization has been growing over the last number of years, expanding the programming they offer.
“We started off with one house. Now, we have two houses, one for men, one for women,” said Parke. “Our other programs have been developed, seeing the need and in understanding addiction and wanting to break the chain of addiction. What better place to start than have healthy children.
“We had exponential growth over the last couple of years and now we’re opening up the daycare.”
With the rapid growth, they couldn’t keep up on bringing in staff.
“Tyler, being in the executive director position and doing that part of it and managing all that, it just got to be so fast and we couldn’t hire fast enough,” said Parke.
Now, the non-profit has a team in place and is evaluating where Lorenz’s talents would be best utilized.
“We’ve got managers in place,” said Parke. “We’re looking at where Tyler’s the most effective.”
In a recent Facebook post, Lorenz said he’s been working over the last seven years to build up RIR. He went on to explain he found his calling in the work he does but it was time to take a step back.
“Unfortunately, by putting all my energy into the organization, I slowly began to lose myself. I had been trying to find the right time to step away for the past six months,” he said in the post, noting the time was never right to step away as there was always something he had to be doing.
“My prayers were finally answered when the Board of Directors stepped in and gave me the opportunity to step way.”
Read more: Lloydminster to roll out warming van, again
