We thank those companies who supported our efforts as sponsors of the 2011 Polaris Awards. Click on the poster below to see our 2011 Polaris sponsors.
For information about 2012 Polaris sponsorship opportunities, contact Cathy Tracy at 860.951.6161 x14 or email at cathy.tracy@leadershipgh.org
The annual Polaris Awards is Leadership Greater Hartford's major fundraising event that recognizes individuals who provide a powerful light and example for others to follow. These Polaris Leaders demonstrate the vision, courage and innovation in undertaking important community endeavors that produce lasting and meaningful results.
We named this award for the Polaris Star, or North Star, considered to be one of the brightest lights in our sky. Known for guiding pioneers, explorers and travelers on their journeys.
Proceeds from this event allow Leadership Greater Hartford to continue researching and developing new programs and providing tuition assistance to participants of current programs.
2011 Polaris Award Winners
Anthony “Joe the Barber” Cymerys
Don’t even try to make a fuss over Anthony “Joe the Barber” Cymerys. Understand, he loves to meet people and talk – oh, how he loves to talk – just not about himself. “Ahh, everyone thinks I’m so wonderful, but do you know what? I get back. Oh, my God, I get back so much more than I give,” Joe says. Besides, Joe’s way too busy to slow down and reflect – “It’s those damn endorphins pumping out of me because it makes me feel so good,” the 80-year-old says. Still, let’s take an accounting of Joe’s deeds:
He is most recognized as “Joe the Barber,” who gives free haircuts, shaves and scalp massages to the homeless in Bushnell Park. He does the same at Chelsea Place convalescence home. He regularly loads his old van at Foodshare (“I get 2,800 pounds of stuff in there. It’s a wonder it has any springs anymore.”) and makes deliveries. He’s a Eucharistic minister in his Windsor parish – though he jokes, he goes to church daily as much to maintain his crossword puzzle competition with the pastor. He’s been with the Windsor Community Council for 20 years. He’s nearing his 800 blood donation to the Red Cross. “But my biggest thing now,” Joe says, "is caring for his 94-year-old sister and 96-year-old brother-in-law," who live with him. "No nursing homes for them," Joe insists.
So, how’d it all begin? “Life was good to me, I had a chance to retire early,” says Joe, who set out to be an engineer, was educated as an accountant and worked with his father in the building business. “I had a chance to retire a little early. It was time to give back.” So in 1988, he started volunteering at Immaculate Conception Shelter. He’d ride with the outreach worker, driving overflow clients to other shelters where there was room. One day he joked with one of the regulars: “Not only are you a bum, you look like a bum. How about I bring in my clippers?”
The “Hugs for a Haircut” movement was born. “You give them a haircut, they hug you, they kiss you,” Joe says, unable to mask the astonishment in his voice after all these years. “Just the fact of rubbing somebody’s head and feeding them every aspect of love is involved,” Joe says.
Joe recalled being approached by a policeman in the park who asked if he had a permit. “Permit? I’m not even a barber!” Joe responded. After hearing his story, the cop left him with a message: “Keep up the work of the Lord." “I didn’t realize I was going to start this … whatever it is,” Joe says in a rare quiet, reflective moment.
Patricia Kelly, Founder, President & CEO, Ebony Horsewomen
Pat Kelly believes in magic. She witnesses it every day with the hundreds of disadvantaged kids who participate in the Ebony Horsewomen programs. Horses, Pat will tell you, are magical creatures. “Horses heal, that’s the short of it. I’d like to be able to say, ‘Look what I’ve done!’ But it’s the horses,” Pat said. “Horses are very sensitive and will mirror your emotions,” Pat explained. “We get boys, thugs, thug-like, thug wannabes. Horses don’t like confusion and anger and they pick up anger from the kids. I’ll tell these kids, ‘No, the horse is not crazy, there’s something wrong with you. You have to calm yourself down.’" “There’s no way you can control a 1,300-pound animal by pulling and saying ‘Whoa!’ The only way you can control that animal is by controlling yourself. When they control themselves and transmit the correct signals, there’s a sense of accomplishment. That horse gives you immediate feedback: ‘You and I are partners.’ They work it out in the saddle."
“We’re trying to change the culture,” Pat said. “One of the most respected American icons is the cowboy. The cowboy is recognized around the world. These young kids are cowboys and cowgirls. They walk around in their Stetsons and boots. We want to change the image from the urban thug to urban cowboy/cowgirls. They get their esteem in the saddle. It’s not the bling-bling around the neck, it’s the cowboy hat, gold (belt) buckle and horse.” Need evidence? Ebony Horsewomen, which operates from the former Hartford mounted patrol stables at Keney Park, serves between 300 and 360 kids a year. Of those who participate five or more years, 88 percent graduate from high school and most go on to college. “If I have my administrator hat on and I see how little money we have to do this important work, I can get frustrated in a heartbeat,” Pat said. “If I have my humanities hat on, there’s no frustration at all. I see metamorphosis in these children daily. I have changed a generation, not just one kid. The humanities hat lady can’t convince the administrator lady that’s enough.”
Pamela Trotman Reid, PhD, President, Saint Joseph College
Community is a central theme of conversation with Pamela Reid. She came to the area, she says, in search of community. She found a “very exciting, very vibrant” community at Saint Joseph College. She strives to develop communities through Saint Joseph’s physical expansion into Hartford and collaborative partnerships with like-minded institutions. Pamela celebrates the sense of community. As the leader of an institution whose “mission always has been service and leadership,” it’s fitting.
As an administrator, Pamela recognizes it’s good business, too. A case in point is the opening of Saint Joseph’s graduate-level School of Pharmacy, which welcomes its first class to downtown Hartford this fall. It will provide a nice boost to downtown. “I am expecting the benefit to go both ways. I was thinking Hartford would plug us,” said Pamela, outlining her vision to expand Saint Joseph’s identity. “I thought from the beginning (opening the pharmacy school downtown) would be an opportunity. Saint Joseph students do so much downtown already, yet because we didn’t have a physical presence people didn’t realize it,” Pamela said. Basing the program downtown should benefit recruitment. “I’m a city girl,” says Pamela, “and thought graduate students would want to be in a (place) where there’s opportunity to meet others in a vibrant city. Being in the capital city is an exciting opportunity for a young professional.”
And, Pamela predicts, for Saint Joseph College. “I hope that we will be much better known regionally. For 80 years we’ve been a very local institution. We want and need to be broader in our reach – not statewide but regionally,” Pamela said. “I want the pharmacy program to be one of best in the country.” That won’t happen on its own, though, which circles back to Pamela’s message about community. “Gone are the days people could do everything themselves,” she said. “We’re looking for partnerships. We reach out and try to collaborate.”
Congratulations to our
2011 Polaris Award Finalists
William H. Austin, Retired West Hartford Fire Chief
Leaders come in different shapes and styles. There are those who lead from the back, and those who are at the front. There are those who issue orders, and those who model the way. Bill Austin has the bearing, knowledge, experience, stature, and credentials to sit behind a desk and dictate. But that isn’t his style.
Bill is an out-front, leader by example. “I would never ask you to do something I wouldn’t do myself,” he says. To him, leadership revolves around relationships. It’s about collaboration. Over time, Bill, who is a retired sergeant major in the U.S. Army and has been a fire chief since 1978 (in West Hartford since 1996), realized, “You can’t be a micromanager or you go nuts.” Bill said he evolved a “macro” style of leadership, trusting others to perform their jobs while he set the long-range agenda. “Sometimes what you do today doesn’t have nearly as much affect now as it will in the next five-10 years,” he says. “You learn along the way … that collaboration really comes into that process,” Bill says. “You really have to accomplish things with people whose top priority might be different (than yours). I’ve learned to be part of the bigger picture.”
And in his field of expertise, disaster preparedness, anticipating the future is the crucial skill. “That really paid off after 9/11,” Bill said. “When 9/11 occurred, it really transformed emergency responders. It pointed out that was the time to be collaborative. We learned we had to function as one huge operation, from being about your own thing to something much bigger.“
This summer Bill retired from the West Hartford fire department and assumed a new role as director of the Capitol Region Emergency Planning Committee (CREPC). It’s a big, important job. Bill has the credentials for it. More importantly, he has the fortitude. “It’s building relationships. Learning all the ins-and-outs (of the people and institutions he’ll deal with),” Bill says.
Bruce Douglas, PhD, Executive Director, Capitol Region Education Council
To Bruce Douglas, educator, it’s a no-brainer. Every child, no matter where they live or their economic situation, deserves an equal opportunity for the finest education. “It’s a life mission – providing equal opportunity,” Bruce said. “I’ve always been driven by social-justice issues.”
Bruce says he’s forever astounded that some of the most impoverished children in the United States live 15 minutes from some of the wealthiest suburbs. The disparity of opportunities afforded children is “profound,” Bruce says. “You can’t be an American and tolerate that kind of thing. It’s immoral.“
So Capital Region Educational Council (CREC) attempts to balance the educational playing field by helping every student access all resources available within the region. Bruce, who assumed leadership of CREC in 2001 and has seen it grow from a $38 million organization with 350 employees to one with a $230M budget with 2,000 employees, said the students and parents he encountered in his first career stop, as a teacher in Bloomfield, set him on his path. “They taught me so much about social justice and the meaning of education by their performance,” he says. “The willingness to give the extra effort to achieve; the resilience to overcome the depredation of poverty.”
As director of CREC, Bruce has overseen the development of almost half of the 28 magnet schools that have been developed since 1997, as well as the growth of the Open Choice program, also run by CREC. CREC’s voluntary integration program has become a national model. And as former Hartford Superintendent Steven Adamowski noted, the magnets have helped to drive school reform and improvement throughout the Hartford system.
“When we find that children in Hartford are performing at the same level as children in suburbs, and that all (Connecticut) students are performing at the same level as the rest of the world, we’ll achieve our goal,” Bruce said. “It’s something I see on the horizon, because we’re standing on the shoulders of giants who came before us and it will be up to those who follow us to finish the job.”
Kate Emery, Founder & CEO, Walker Systems Support
Back in the late 1990s Kate Emery began to think she was part of a club “maybe I don’t want to belong to.” She was the founder and CEO of a successful company, Walker Systems Support, an IT and web services firm located in Farmington. But, Kate decided, “business as usual” – with undo focus on bottom-line profit was not how she wished to operate. So, she decided to incorporate her personal philosophy into Walker’s business model. She eventually codified her belief, and in 2007 restructured Walker as a social enterprise. Social enterprises are businesses that use the free market to make social impact with the goal of “putting purpose and people above profit.”
At Walker, profits are dispersed one third to stockholders, one third to employees and one third to the community. Kate has become a champion of the social enterprise business model in hope of promoting Connecticut as an incubator for the movement. She formed the Social Enterprise Trust (reSET) and enlists other like-minded individuals and groups to commit to the philosophy. “People looked cross-eyed back (in the 1990s),” Kate said. “But after 2007, 2008 nobody was looking cross-eyed anymore. Everyone gets the point. There’s a lot of energy and enthusiasm for trying something different.” Kate admits “many investors have a hard time getting their head around (the concept).” “As an investor I’m looking at non-financial returns as increasingly important. Yes, it feels good to me, but bottom line it’s a good investment because it’s more sustainable. We’ve got to get away from the short-term bottom line.”
And the bottom line, as Kate sees it for her, operating as a social enterprise is good business. For those in the market for Walker’s services, she said, “I see increasingly, (the social enterprise aspect) is a tie-breaker when it comes to two equal options. I think people are drawn to that model. It’s not an either-or. You can have your cake and eat it too, because I think it gives you a competitive advantage and long-term it’s sustainable.”
Curtis D. Robinson, President & CEO, C & R Development
OK, here’s the situation, as Curtis Robinson poses it: “If someone next to you was dying and you could save him … What would you do? Would you let him die? And if you did, what would you say to God?” It’s quite simple, says Curtis. “I want to say to God, I tried to do your will.”
As a prostate cancer survivor, Curtis is aware of the importance of early detection and proactive treatment. He was troubled when he discovered the disproportionate number of African-American men who were contracting and dying of the disease. It needed to be addressed. He had the money – as owner of numerous businesses including the largest minority-owned construction management company in the East, scads of it. He had the influence – he was able to assemble 20 friends with deep pockets who pledged hundreds of thousands in the blink of an eye. Curtis donated $1 million himself. He had the connections – as a member of the board of directors of Sainrt Francis Hospital and Medical Center and the Connecticut Hospital Association, he had the ear of administrators and recruited physicians to give their time and services. Most of all, he had the passion.
Today, Hartford has the Curtis D. Robinson Men’s Health Institute at Saint Francis. Curtis said doctors told him their experience suggested many African American men lack health insurance, so their prostate cancer is not detected until they are forced to the emergency room. “The only time we see these men is when it’s progressed too far,” Curtis was told. So Curtis’s program sends volunteer health providers into the community every Saturday and Sunday to offer early-detection screening. Anyone who is recommended for treatment receives a free biopsy and surgery as needed. “We’re the only ones in America doing this,” Curtis said. “No one, no one, no one operates for free (elsewhere).”
In the 16 months after the program was instituted, Curtis said, 1,300 men were tested, and “we treated 31 of them who probably would have died. That’s what we do. There is no feeling on this earth than the moment someone can look in your eyes and say, ‘You gave me my life back.’ No feeling that I’ve had,” Curtis said. “This is what God wants.”
Galo Rodriguez, President & CEO, The Village for Families and Children
It’s moments like these that confirm for Galo Rodriguez the importance of his work. Recently, an 80-year-old woman sought a meeting with Galo…to say thank you…for 70 years ago. “She used to live on our campus (as an orphan),” Galo said. She was adopted, and went on to live a good life, raising three successful children. “She came back to visit after 70 years to thank the agency for the services she received,” Galo said. “According to her, without the agency she wouldn’t have become the person she became. That’s humbling.” But not uncommon.
According to Galo he regularly hears from successful adults, who benefited from the services provided by the Village for Families and Children. Besides being affirming, the anecdotes provide motivation to Galo and his staff to remain “focused on our mission” to serve “children in need.” The challenges are many and progress can seem slow. But being the steward for a 200-year-old organization and imagining 100 or 200 years ahead, gives Galo perspective. “I ask what can I do to really sustain, maintain and preserve. Where is the agency going to be? In my view, it’s always perfecting,” Galo said. “We have to make sure we capture what can help children in the long run.” The ultimate measure of success will be when “children can live in communities where they are safe and nurtured.” Galo said. “I know that it’s a challenge. Generation by generation it’s a challenge. But I want to feel optimistic we have a solution and are working toward that.”
It’s certainly the goal Galo has been working toward all his professional life. Trained as a physician in his native Colombia, Galo recognized “my mission, my goal, my inclination was to provide services to people who were underserved.”
Reverend Patrice Smith, Executive Director, Saving Our Kids From The Streets
This city. These streets. Those kids.That life. The challenges are many and the odds daunting, but Reverend Patrice Smith counts her successes one by one – every one kid she saves from mean streets and steers onto the right path in life. Kids like Caesar, who just graduated from college and turned 22. Not so long ago either event seemed unlikely – that Caesar would even attend college or that he’d live to 22. Caesar was a tough kid running the streets, not interested in school. “I kept chasing him around like I was his mother,” Patrice says. “(Telling him) You’re going to finish school so you can get out of the streets. I chased this guy, became his shadow – everywhere he looked (he saw me). I think he just got tired of me … but it was all worthwhile.”
Patrice graduated from Hartford Seminary in 1990, and is an ordained minister, but she has been ministering to the residents of her hometown far longer than that. A Hartford native, Patrice became a supervisor for the SAND (South Arsenal Neighborhood Development) Summer Youth Program at age 15 and set off on her life’s path. Through her work in the Hartford School System, starting in the cafeteria and rising through the ranks as a security officer, she earned a reputation as someone who could connect with kids. Soon the police were referring kids her way and seeking her help in anti-gang measures. She started Saving Our Kids From The Streets to help those who many already considered a lost cause. She prowled the streets “at 3-4-5 o’clock” seeking out troubled kids. “I become a mother figure for them. It’s love. I bring them in,” Patrice says. “Some we catch, some we don’t.” But there is no cause too lost for Patrice, who conducts Bible study and services out of her home. “Then they never leave,” she laughs. “I think they just want me for my food.”
Will K. Wilkins, Executive Director, Real Art Ways
Tell Will K. Wilkins you’re “passionate about the arts,” and he’ll tune out. That’s not where he’s coming from. Will’s passion lies in what the arts can do – connect people, build communities, foster a sense of belonging. Will has molded Real Art Ways, which he’s led since 1990, it into one of the nation’s leading contemporary organizations, presenting visual arts, theater, music, spoken word, film, and video. Support from the likes of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Ford Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts speak to that. He guided the $1.8 million development of the Real Art Ways Center, rehabilitating a rundown factory in the Parkville neighborhood into theater, gallery and social space. And he’s not done, envisioning “more space, a few more theaters, classroom space, more social space” in the future.
Real Arts Way has commissioned public arts projects, many involving community participation; has sponsored a design competition, with neighborhood residents as jurors; has commissioned three major artist’s residencies with the neighborhood senior center; and has been a key participant in a neighborhood planning process, resulting in a redesign of the central commercial district. All of that’s notable for sure, but Will says it’s “really about connecting people with others. I’m passionate about the particular work we do and how we connect with community.”
When he moved to Hartford from New York City, Will said he noted the area was disconnected. As an example, he said, someone living in suburban Boston likely identifies themselves as Bostonian. Whereas Greater Hartford residents will say they’re from their particular town. “The sense of belonging is fractured,” he said. “There are a lot of generous people, a lot of creative people. But they’re all atomized. There isn’t feeling like you’re at the center of things.” And that’s where Will’s vision for Real Arts Way comes in. “Where we succeed is bringing people in to connect. It’s a huge issue for this region – the future is all about people.”