CEO Corner
April 19, 2022
Every April, it is my turn to explain the Board of Directors and the Executive Department to readers of the Pathway. Our philosophy here at HBI is simple–the employees who deliver services directly to the individuals being served are the most important employees in the organization. These include employees such as the nursing staff, Direct Support Professionals or DSPs, and the Program Managers, who manage services at the sites. The job of everyone else, including the corporate office, is to ensure that these staff have the tools and resources they need to do that job. These tools may include tangible things such as housing, food, vehicles, program and nursing supplies, and individual files. They may also include intangibles such as good training, necessary information, good direction, workable policies, and the proper licenses.
HBI’s Board of Directors provides governance, without which no organization can function. Governance can be broken down into three essential functions: oversight, supervision, and planning. The Board exercises oversight over all of HBI’s operations, from financial to service delivery, by examining its work through written reports and at committee meetings. Its supervision involves the hiring, monitoring and evaluation of me, the CEO. Finally, it plans for the future, so that HBI can adapt to changing circumstances.
HBI has an involved and energetic Board. There are ten individuals who serve on it, with a diverse group of talents. These skills include financial management, marketing, health care & disabilities, banking, & investment. Five of the members have relatives with disabilities. All members are volunteers and work hard–at least one meeting a month and sometimes more, with preparatory work thrown in. Volunteering for HBI’s Board takes a special person, for the time and intellectual commitments are huge. As you know, the business of disability services is complicated and highly specialized.
My job is deceptively simple–as the CEO I am to get done what the Board wants done and also to ensure the day to day operations of HBI. That means making sure that staff who deliver direct services have the tools to do so. To make all this happen, HBI has five units, or departments if you will, to organize the work.
The Directors of Finance & Property, Human Resources, Nursing, Training, Operations & Program, & Development report to me and are also heavily involved with their respective Board committees.
Mary Carlson, HBI’s Program Administrator of Risk Management and New Services, works with me. Mary is in charge of insurance vendors except for employee benefits and worker’s compensation, and individual referrals for open spots within the organization. Mary works to improve consumer safety, by collecting information about incidents, analyzes patterns and supervises the organization’s investigation of possible maltreatment. She also serves as the client advocate to help settle issues with services, if these cannot be settled by the managers involved.
Michael Perez works for me as the Program Administrator of Quality Assurance. Michael has a big job. He oversees our compliance with licensing and regulatory standards, as well as overseeing the quality of our service delivery. He participates in policy and procedure development. Michael also oversees our electronic service documentation systems.
Finally, working directly for me is the Project Manager, Andrea Reicks. Andrea has wide & varied duties, from helping to run the Executive office to managing special projects. She also helps to run our workers compensation program, where she manages employee injuries, coordinates with our insurance provider, and collects data on employee safety.
All of these individuals work out of the corporate office and can be reached by calling 763-525-3186.
