Hartford Business Journal Special Editions

5 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | OCTOBER 4, 2021 By Norm Bell Special to the Hartford Business Journal By all objective criteria, Kim Beauregard is a rock star in the unique but adjacent worlds of health care and nonprofits. In almost 18 years at the helm of InterCommunity Health Care in East Hartford, she's evaded bankruptcy more than once, overseen a game- changing merger with Hartford's Alcohol and Drug Recovery Centers and built her empire to 18 facilities, 350 employees and 175 in-patient beds. She's testified before legislative committees, cheered on and counseled the next generation of women leaders, taken her seat as a director at the former healthcare quality monitor Qualidigm and received an honorary doctorate from Charter Oak College. So why can't she shake the nagging sense that she "just as easily could have been a client" requiring the services she now dispenses at InterCommunity? As she tells it, her backstory is complex. "There was lots of trauma in my life," she explains. In her 20s, there was substance abuse, "largely alcohol." She was a single mom. She found her passion in social work and took real pleasure helping her clients, like taking a paranoid client out shopping or connecting an addict with help or helping a homeless client find a warm bed. "Those were the good days," she recalls. Her ability to see matters from the client's perspective gave her authenticity both in the field and in the office at MidState Behavioral Health System in Meriden. Soon, she was leading teams and discovering there was pleasure in scaling up, helping clients in larger numbers instead of one-on-one. In 2003, she made the jump to lead the troubled InterCommunity Health Care. The keys to success run the gamut from good practice to good luck, but the constant was building a winning culture. Her style is to lead by example. Her hours are long; she lives her mantra "never say it isn't my job." Still, she acknowledges she needs to follow what she teaches, not what she does, on work-life balance. Her employees have responded by winning InterCommunity a place on The Courant's Best Places to Work list 11 years running. LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 2021 Kim Beauregard CEO & President InterCommunity Health Care, East Hartford Education: Master's in urban studies and master's in social work, Southern Connecticut State University; master's in psychology, California Coast University. Boards: Past director, The Alliance and Qualidigm. Honors: Honorary doctor of humane letters, Charter Oak College; Hartford Business Journal's 2017 Women in Business Award; HBJ's Health Care Heroes – Achievements in Health Care Innovation; 11-time winner of Hartford Courant's Best Places to Work; National Dorland Health's top people in health care. Guiding business principle: "Focus on your people and all else will follow." Beauregard's passion for behavioral health services leaves enduring legacy Still, her job is far from easy. The pandemic has taken a toll, both on InterCommunity and Beauregard. Staffing 175 residential beds 24/7 has strained everyone and there are new signs of fraying with every new wave of cases. And there's always the budget. Winning status as a Federally Qualified Health Center "look-alike" was a big help. And telemedicine is a cost-efficient way to see more patients. But there's never quite enough money to meet all the needs. Passion still strong As a nonprofit, InterCommunity relies heavily on donor events like the upcoming Light Up the Night gala. Ticket prices — sponsorships range to $25,000 — suggest some of InterCommunity's backers have deep pockets, even if the clients don't. The pandemic has forced the Oct. 28 event into the virtual space. The online ad makes the case directly: "We, and the people we serve, need your help to recover." For Beauregard, she's started wondering what if. InterCommunity's leadership is strong and would be fine if she takes a step back. She stresses she's not thinking about retiring, rather thinking about opening a next chapter. Sure, there's some allure to walking the beach on Florida's west coast, a favored destination. The five kids of her blended family are doing well and grandparenting is a worthy occupation. She'd welcome more time to explore all those complex British mysteries that challenge her. But not now, not yet. There's simply too much work to be done, too many people who need help and too much energy left in her tank. She finds limited appeal in politics and worries about becoming tangled in red tape in a government or regulatory role. Advocacy seems to be the North Star for that next chapter. What form might that take? She says HBJ readers will be among the first to know, as soon as she works it all out. But rest assured, the passion is still strong, she says, particularly for behavioral health issues.

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