When Everything Has Been Built

Recently, I sat down with Heather Alge, CEO of The Fogarty Center, to talk about the strategic planning work we had just completed together. But our conversation quickly became about something much bigger than a strategic plan: what it means to inherit decades of good work and accept responsibility for what comes next.

That is the leadership challenge Heather stepped into.

The Fogarty Center traces its roots to 1952. For more than seven decades, it has been part of an evolving effort to help people with intellectual and developmental disabilities live with greater dignity, independence, choice, and opportunity. Heather wasn’t new to that mission. In fact, her path to the CEO’s office began about as far from the CEO’s office as you can get.

She joined Ocean State Community Resources, which would later merge with the John E. Fogarty Center, in 2008 after someone she had worked with at another agency called her out of the blue. There was a young girl in the HBTS program who needed a home-based worker, and she thought Heather would be perfect for her. Heather said yes.

What began as direct work supporting one young person grew into something much larger. Heather also helped coordinate respite services, and after having her daughter in 2011, she realized this was where she wanted to be. Then someone discovered she was good with numbers. She started helping with billing worksheets, which led her into finance. She became Finance Director, earned a graduate degree in public administration, and continued taking on more responsibility.

By around 2020, however, Heather and others had begun worrying about something very different: succession.

David Reiss had led the organization since 1991. More than a CEO, he carried decades of relationships, history, judgment, and institutional knowledge. Heather remembers the thought of him eventually leaving as something that “really, really scared us.” So they didn’t wait for retirement to force the issue. Fogarty created a COO position, Heather stepped into it, and for the next three years she worked alongside David preparing for a transition neither of them took lightly.

There were moments during those years when Heather would walk into David’s office and say, “I don’t know if I can do this.” That was part of the value of having those three years together. David was still there to listen, offer perspective, and gradually let go.

We talked about how succession is like the exchange zone in a relay race. For a few moments, two runners are moving together. Both have a hand on the baton. Eventually, one has to let go.

David did.

One of the things Heather remembers most was his willingness to let her lead differently. They would sometimes talk through an issue and arrive at different conclusions. David would tell her, “That’s not how I would do it. But that’s how you’re going to do it.”

There may be no better description of successful succession. The goal wasn’t to create another David Reiss. It was to prepare the next leader.

The temptation to have the answers

There is a temptation that comes with the title CEO. You feel like you’re supposed to know all the answers. Heather had more reason than most to feel that way. She had been at the organization since 2008. She had worked directly with people receiving services. She understood operations and finance. She had been Finance Director and COO. She had spent three years preparing beside the outgoing CEO.

She knew the organization from the ground up.

She could have walked into the job thinking, I know this place. I know what needs to happen. Now let me show everyone I can lead it.

She didn’t.

Instead, Heather did something that requires considerably more confidence. She allowed for the possibility that she didn’t have all the answers.

She spent much of her first year listening and learning. She was even deliberate about what she wouldn’t immediately change. After more than three decades under one CEO, Fogarty needed some time to adjust to the next. But waiting wasn’t the strategy. She was learning.

And as Heather approached her first anniversary as CEO, a different question began to emerge. She had inherited a strong organization. Now what?

As she put it:

“What are you going to do with everything that’s been built?”

When good isn’t enough

Fogarty wasn’t facing a turnaround. Heather inherited a stable, reputable organization, and that creates its own leadership risk. Problems have a way of forcing change on you. Success doesn’t. When things are going well, it’s easy to keep doing what got you there.

Except the world doesn’t agree to stand still with you.

Political priorities and public policy change. Funding models evolve. Medicaid reimbursement affects the ability to attract and retain direct-support professionals. Technology creates new opportunities and new demands. The needs of the people we serve evolve, as does our understanding of what it means to support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The way we support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities has changed dramatically over the years. The focus today is much more on helping people live in their communities, make their own choices, build relationships, and create lives that belong to them. Fogarty’s new strategic plan reflects that shift:

“We need to help build communities that move past simply providing a seat at the table and work towards a culture of genuine belonging.”

Elsewhere, the plan goes further:

“People defining services, not programs defining people.”

After 74 years, the mission still matters. But that doesn’t mean Fogarty can keep doing everything the way it always has.

Heather put it simply:

“Our status quo is fantastic. We want to raise the bar.”

Curiosity before certainty

Heather knew Fogarty needed a plan, but she didn’t disappear into her office and write one. She wanted employees involved. She wanted to hear from people receiving services and their families. She wanted her leadership team wrestling with the questions together.

And she wanted someone from outside Fogarty involved—not because she didn’t understand the organization, but because she’d spent nearly two decades inside it.

As she told me:

“I really felt like I needed somebody else to peek inside and maybe see things that I didn’t see.”

That’s why Heather brought our Dirigo team into the process. What impressed me wasn’t that she sought outside expertise. CEOs do that all the time. It was what she did with it.

She didn’t outsource the answers to us. She didn’t dictate the answers to her team. She created a process for discovering the answers together.

The resulting plan reflects input from employees, board members, families, people receiving services, and Fogarty’s broader community. That discovery became five areas of strategic focus: Inclusion & Community, Workforce & Culture, Systems Improvement, Financial Health, and Our Services.

Heather described her philosophy this way:

“When people have a seat at the table, and their voices are heard, they become more invested in making the plan successful.”

There was leadership from the top, but there was also a CEO confident enough to make room for voices other than her own.

From our plan to my accountability

Creating a plan is easier than executing one, and Heather saw two dangers. They could charge ahead, launch everything, overwhelm the organization, and lose people along the way. Or they could admire the finished plan, place it on a shelf, and rediscover it four and a half years later.

Her response?

“We’re not going to do either.”

The plan spans several years, taking into account dependencies, resources, and organizational capacity. But Heather did something else that caught my attention. As she completed her first annual CEO evaluation, she mapped the strategic plan’s first-year goals directly into her own objectives.

The process of determining the future was collaborative. The responsibility for leading it isn’t.

Heather has effectively told her board: This is what we said matters. Now hold me accountable for moving it forward.

That’s where curiosity becomes commitment.

Stewarding the mission

There is a difference between preserving an institution and stewarding a mission.

Preserving asks: How do we protect what we’ve built?

Stewardship asks: What does the mission require of us now?

Sometimes that means protecting something previous generations got exactly right. Sometimes it means letting go of practices that once served us well. And sometimes it means admitting that the answers that brought an organization this far may not be the answers that carry it forward.

Heather Alge inherited more than a CEO title. She inherited decades of work from people who believed that individuals with disabilities deserved greater opportunity to make choices, develop relationships, participate in their communities, and live the best lives possible.

Her responsibility isn’t to preserve Fogarty exactly as she received it. It’s to ensure that mission remains alive and relevant for the people who will need it next.

Perhaps that’s why one of the simplest things Heather said stayed with me. When we talked about bringing Fogarty’s values to life, she didn’t talk about posters, campaigns, or slogans.

She said:

“I just need to walk the walk.”

Maybe that’s where stewardship begins: with enough humility to keep asking the questions, enough courage to change when the answers demand it, and enough accountability to accept responsibility for what happens next.

“Leadership isn’t about preserving the institution you’ve inherited. It’s about stewarding the mission you’ve been entrusted with.”