August 8, 2019 - After nearly 41 years with Reliance Health, our Chief Executive Officer, David Burnett, has retired. His absence will be felt for a long time to come. As the self-proclaimed “minister of culture”, Dave was an integral part of Reliance Health. He was our first paid employee who laid the groundwork for the agency we are today. His belief in supporting growth, respecting each other, and love being a medical necessity fostered the ability for Reliance Health to be awarded Top Workplace while leading the way in mental health service and education in Eastern CT.

Because Dave was so focused on the culture and mission of Reliance Health, he did his due diligence in ensuring that “some guy in a suit from Ohio” wouldn’t be taking over as Chief Executive upon his retirement. Instead, Dave spent the past 12 years preparing our Chief Operating Officer, Carrie Dyer, for the role.

Carrie has worked for Reliance Health since 1994 when she was hired for a program that was being developed to support individuals who were moving out of Norwich Hospital. While waiting for the program to gain funding she temporarily worked with adults living with developmental disabilities, coupled with mental health barriers. When the funding fell through, Carrie was transferred to a service coordination role where she provided support to individuals who were on parole, probation, supervised diversionary, transitional supervision status or who were under the auspices of the Psychiatric Security Review Board. After 3 years of providing direct care services she became the program supervisor. Carrie obtained her master’s in organizational management from Eastern Connecticut State University and was promoted to Service Director in 2002, overseeing the agency’s service coordination programs. As Reliance Health grew, so did Carrie, transitioning to the role of Program Administrator before becoming our Chief Operating Officer in 2007. “When I started, we only had one residential program and about 40 employees. Now we’re serving all of Eastern Connecticut through 11 residential homes, nearly 30 community-based programs and over 250 staff. To grow along with the agency has been a wonderful experience. I never could have imagined this path for myself but am grateful for the support and encouragement I have received to get here”.

In her role as Chief Operating Officer, Carrie has been known to work tirelessly to ensure that despite funding losses, those in need maintain access to quality services while staff remain employed. Her reputation is that of a strong advocate who consistently pushes back when the system imposes restrictions on our ability to provide care. Her focus has been to pursue opportunities to enhance service delivery, while promoting staff’s ability to be empowered.

Carrie has demonstrated a strong commitment, not only to the staff and service recipients of Reliance Health, but to the community as a whole. In addition to working with regional social service organizations to advocate for mental health services, she partners with community members and local businesses to engage in collaborative ventures that promote whole-body wellness and community development. Norwich Creates, for which she is the Chair, highlights her inventive ability to bring various groups together to produce creative energies in and around Norwich.  Since connecting Reliance Health with Norwich First Fridays Carrie has coordinated each gallery show at the agency, securing artists up to a year in advance. Her efforts with the gallery have attributed to Reliance Health’s growing relationship with the community, promoting education and connection between those served, artists, and gallery visitors, while simultaneously encouraging the evolution of downtown Norwich.

In conjunction with Norwich Creates, Carrie collaborates with a variety of community members to ensure Reliance Health programs are successful in their efforts to engage in community focused projects. Her involvement with Arts in Health, a Southeastern Connecticut Cultural Coalition group, led to the Common Thread art collaborative in 2018 which brought 4 nonprofit organizations together to work on a collective art project which was displayed at the Groton New London Airport in addition to the Reliance Health gallery. This year she secured another grant from the same source to connect our Supportive Housing programs with another collaborative project, “The Art of Healing” (blog link).

Carrie has been a leader in Reliance’s Health’s movement toward whole-body wellness while promoting community development, “I feel like there was a pivotal point when we started sharing our passion for what we do with the community. What we do here is build relationships, so it just makes sense to build relationships with the residents and businesses around us while supporting their growth”.

Dave is “very confident in Carrie’s desire and ability to lead Reliance Health in a manner which upholds our culture, employees and those we serve”. While he won’t officially be our employee, he will continue to seek out opportunities to participate in events and support our mission, while in turn, looking out for Carrie. “For some time now, Carrie has had more ability than I to handle the complexities of today’s world. Wisdom is important, but truth be known, Carrie may have more of that than I do now. I look forward to supporting her, as our employees have supported me over the last 41 years.”