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56 | HARTFORD BUSINESS JOURNAL • OCTOBER 2, 2017 When Walt Harrison walked into retirement in June, the University of Hartford said goodbye to a president who had reshaped the campus and the curriculum while growing both the student body and the school's financial resources. Also, Connecticut said goodbye to a powerful voice in the inner circles of intercollegiate athletics. On Harrison's watch, the West Hartford campus added dorms, chemistry and biology buildings and a performing arts center. Two magnet schools took the education program into the community. Enrollment grew 20 percent and the endowment tripled. The National Collegiate Athletic Association presented Harrison with its Gerald Ford Award for his work as chair of the Division I Committee on Academic Performance. His message was clear and compelling: college sports should be played by student athletes, not professionals. In the community, he was on the boards of Hartford Stage, Connecticut Science Center, MetroHartford Alliance and St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center. He was also an HBJ Lifetime Achievement Award honoree. In her six-plus years as president of the University of Connecticut, Susan Herbst has set a course toward becoming a transformational figure in Storrs and in Greater Hartford. The university's first female president has her fingerprints on two of the largest investments by the state — Next Generation Connecticut and Bioscience Connecticut. The first is a $1.5-billion effort to expand the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. The latter is an $864-million initiative that is revitalizing UConn Health's programs and facilities. Herbst also is credited with playing a role in leveraging the Bioscience Connecticut project into attracting The Jackson Laboratory to create a new billion-dollar personalized medicine laboratory on the UConn Health campus in Farmington. UConn also returned to downtown Hartford with the first classes in the former Hartford Times building this fall. And, despite the breakup of the Big East, the basketball teams just kept winning championships. Herbst also received HBJ's Women in Business award in 2015. For the past decade, Howard has led Middletown-based Liberty Bank as president and CEO, but his Connecticut banking pedigree stretches back much farther. He managed Bank of America's consumer banking network here starting in 1996 and later served as B of A's Hartford market president. He also served as president and CEO at First City Fund Corp, a community development bank in New Haven. As the rare African American banking CEO, he has been recognized as a role model and has served as chairman of the Greater Hartford Urban League's 40th anniversary celebration. In 2016, Howard received HBJ's Lifetime Achievement Award. Howard has served as president, CEO and director of Connecticut Innovations and as vice chair for the Governor's Council on Economic Competitiveness and Technology. He has been a director at both St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center and Middlesex Hospital. And he demonstrated his sense of humor by being the target of a comedy roast to raise funds for the Middletown United Way. The CEO of Hartford HealthCare has championed regional health networks and rapidly expanded Hartford HealthCare's portfolio. Today, the network expands west to Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington, south to MidState Medical Center in Meriden and east to Windham Hospital in Willimantic. The latest initiative involves opening 15 Go Centers — urgent care facilities — across Greater Hartford by mid-2018. Scale, efficiency, technology and access to capital have been central to Joseph's program. He came to Hartford HealthCare in 1999 after serving as president and CEO of St. John Health, a $1.8-billion healthcare system in southeast Michigan. He hosts "Health Care Matters," a radio show about the transformation of the American healthcare industry. He is a trustee and serves as chair of the hospital finance committee of the Connecticut Hospital Association. Hartford HealthCare employs more than 18,000 staff members and generates $2.4 billion in net revenue. Susan Herbst Elliott Joseph Chandler Howard Walt Harrison 25 Newsmakers