CEO of statewide mental health care provider to step down next month
PHOTo / Tim Greenway
In this file photo from 2016, Debra Taylor, president and CEO of Sweetser, is pictured in Saco at Ricker Farm, part of an experimental learning program offered by the nonprofit's Eslie J. Parquette School.
The president and CEO of Sweetser, which provides community-based mental health care services throughout Maine, will step down from her role in September after more than 20 years with the Saco-based nonprofit.
Debra Taylor will leave Sweetser in order to relocate outside Maine with her husband, a spokeswoman told Mainebiz on Thursday.
“I have made the decision to pass the baton to new leadership after serving the organization in many capacities throughout the years," Taylor said in a news release. "It has been my absolute pleasure to work with our staff members, donors and volunteers providing services that are needed now more than ever before.”
Jessica Demers, chair of the Sweetser board of directors, said the board has begun a search for Taylor’s successor. In the meantime, Chief Program Officer Jim Martin will support the transition and lead day-to-day operations.
“We are appreciative of Deb’s leadership and contributions to Sweetser throughout the years,” DeMers added.
Taylor, who was honored in 2016 as one of four Mainebiz Women to Watch, is a Sanford native who was educated at Maine universities, joined Sweetser in 2000 and worked her way up from director of patient accounts to controller and then vice president of finance. She held that role for seven years. In 2014 she was named president and CEO, after the retirement of Carl Pendleton, who had served in that position for more than two decades.
In a previous interview, she told Mainebiz she was not originally on the track to become CEO, since that was a position traditionally held by health care professionals.
“When I started here, it was unthinkable that anyone from a finance background would end up in the CEO seat,” she said at the time of her Women to Watch selection.
Leadership roles at Sweetser and other care providers changed as health insurance, Medicaid and other systems demanded more accountability, according to Taylor. In 2016, Sweetser had 700 employees and an operating budget of $55 million.
Sweetser was founded in 1828 by Cornelius Sweetser and for years ran orphanages. Today, it operates a network of dozens of sites that serve 20,000 clients annually in areas including mental and behavioral health, intellectual and developmental disabilities, recovery, and education. Sweetser is also the largest provider of mobile crisis services in Maine.
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments