What Happens When Passion Shapes Your Career? Kay Lee on passion, purpose, and responsibility.

From lawyer to entrepreneur to industry president, Kay Lee has a multifaceted career at the intersection of law, healthcare, and leadership.

A career is often imagined as a straight line.

Choose a field. Earn the degree. Find the job. Build experience. Move forward.

For Kay Lee, the path has looked different.

Over nearly a decade of higher education, Lee studied humanities, public health, law, and aging across three different colleges. On paper, the fields may seem disconnected. But each one represented something she was genuinely interested in—and passionate about pursuing.

Her undergraduate education in humanities strengthened her critical-thinking skills. Public health allowed her to explore an area she had grown increasingly passionate about, influenced in part by family members who worked in healthcare. Later, she pursued law, a challenging degree that gave her what she saw as one of the most meaningful ways to create change.

Rather than following one predetermined path, Lee allowed her interests to lead her forward.

Seeing Healthcare From a Different Perspective

For Lee, law and healthcare are not separate worlds.

“Healthcare structures are governed by the law,” she explained.

Her experience as a lawyer has given her a broader understanding of how healthcare operates and allowed her to approach challenges from what she describes as the “outside in.”

That perspective has also been shaped by experiences that did not go as planned.

While practicing as an attorney, Lee once worked extensively on a case that ultimately did not go her way. At the time, she questioned whether all of the work she had put into it had been for nothing.

But difficult outcomes can still carry value.

The experience taught her that the knowledge and lessons gained from a setback can be applied toward creating better outcomes in the future—a mindset she has carried with her throughout her career.

Building With Purpose

Building a healthcare center from the ground up brought an entirely different kind of challenge.

“It was nerve-racking,” Lee said.

The responsibility went beyond building a successful organization. She had to understand what services the community needed and consider how the center could genuinely benefit the people it served.

That sense of purpose continues to shape her leadership today.

After spending years on the board of directors and later serving as vice president, Lee became president of CAADS, the California Association for Adult Day Services, where she is now serving her third term. The role has allowed her to work alongside other business leaders while sharing her own knowledge and advocating for both the industry and the populations it serves.

She works closely with the organization's executive director to bring greater awareness to government leaders about the programs and people CAADS represents.

For Lee, growth is not simply about becoming bigger.

Her future goals center on growing and maintaining her businesses responsibly, continuing to provide strong legal counsel, and ensuring the highest quality of care.

More Than a Title

If Lee's degrees, job titles, and accomplishments were taken away, she says she would still define herself in a simple way.

She is self-sufficient. Responsible. Someone who will step in when something needs to get done.

Those qualities were shaped long before her career began. Growing up, Lee watched the people around her—particularly family members and others she respected—and paid attention to the way they carried themselves.

One of the lessons that stayed with her was not to expect others to do things for you.

Today, that sense of responsibility appears throughout her career. But so does something else: passion.

For students beginning to think about their own futures, Lee encourages them to keep an eye on what they genuinely enjoy doing and what interests them.

Passion alone, however, does not build a career.

Growth also requires a willingness to learn, strong time management, organization, and honesty with yourself about what you can realistically accomplish.

But when the work you pursue is connected to something you genuinely care about, it can begin to feel like more than simply work.

Kay Lee's career has not been defined by one degree, one title, or one predetermined path. It has been shaped by a willingness to pursue the fields she was passionate about—and to use what she learned along the way to create meaningful change.

Sometimes, finding your path is not about knowing exactly where it will lead.

Sometimes, it is about following what matters to you.