🔒As Hartford HealthCare’s first Black woman regional president, Calder aims to create ‘pathways for others’

Gina Calder doesn’t have an office. She has offices.

As the new president of Hartford HealthCare’s Central Region — which includes The Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain and its Bradley Memorial campus in Southington, plus MidState Medical Center in Meriden — she has at least three offices, plus a mobile one.

“I have … a nice bag that I have set up for myself that I can show up anywhere and make myself at home so I can get things done,” she said. “I am at least at three different locations in any given week.”

Calder, who officially succeeded Gary Havican on Sept. 1, said she prefers her mobile office.

“I think it’s important that everybody sees me,” she said. “I’m not going to expect that folks try to find me in one place. I’ll go to them.”

Calder is grateful to return to the Northeast; she has settled in Berlin. A New Jersey native, she, her sister and two brothers were raised by their Jamaican-immigrant father and South Carolina-native mother.

While dad worked as a server in the banquet hall at the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square, Calder’s mom was an administrative assistant.

“I learned all my organizational skills from her,” she said.

Calder’s three degrees from Yale University — including a master’s in public health policy and administration and an MBA — also helped.

But she said returning to Connecticut — where she completed her administrative residency and a fellowship, and spent 14 years in the Yale New Haven Health system — offered her an opportunity to work with Hartford HealthCare, which shares her “core passions.”

“So when we look at our market promise, we call it ‘A2, E2,’ focusing on accessibility, affordability, equity and excellence,” Calder said. “These are the reasons that I got into health care.”

She said her family “didn’t have a lot,” but did have some health issues and “didn’t have the access that we needed, or, if we had access, we couldn’t afford the best of what was offered.”

“And so,” she continued, “because Hartford HealthCare really focuses specifically on making sure that we offer that (A2, E2) to all people, I couldn’t say no.”

‘Uniquely qualified’

While announcing the decision to hire Calder in March, Hartford HealthCare President and CEO Jeffrey Flaks said she is “uniquely qualified” to lead the health system’s central region.

The hospitals she oversees generated nearly $1.2 billion in revenue and employed more than 4,200 people in 2023, according to financial reports.

Calder is one of three new C-suite executives hired or promoted by Hartford HealthCare in the past few months, joining Bimal Patel, who was elevated to be the health system’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, and Cheryl Ficara, who was promoted to president of the Hartford region and a senior vice president.

During a recent interview with Hartford Business Journal, Calder discussed her background and how it prepared her for the challenges of her new role.

Here’s what else she had to say. The Q&A was edited for space and clarity.

Q. CEO Jeffrey Flaks made a point of noting that you are HHC’s first black female regional president. How important is that distinction to you, and what do you think it means for others?

A. It reminds me that I stand on the shoulders of giants. There were so many women — Lucille Janatka (the former longtime president and CEO of MidState Medical Center who retired in 2017) to name one — and many, many others who made it possible for me to get here.

And so the intention that Jeff had in actually including that in my announcement also signaled to me the importance that it holds for Hartford HealthCare and our shared priority that I won’t be the last.

It is my job to pave those pathways for others, so that other people can have that opportunity to really give back, to serve, to have impact, to contribute, no matter where they come from, no matter what their background is, as long as they’ve got that passion and are really aligned with who we are and where we’re going.

So, it was very important to me.

Q. How does the central region in Connecticut compare to the Midwest?

A. The system that I came from covered three states. … Huge geography, but much less densely populated and a lot more rural communities.

So, the market I was responsible for was not as populated as the central region and not as diverse. It absolutely is becoming more diverse, but not in the same way as we have here in the central region, with many other languages spoken in addition to English, and with people from many different national origins.

I think the other difference is the way the BJC Health System is structured; it’s much more of a hub-and-spoke model. You had a very large academic medical center that most of the (highly specialized) care was based out of. And you often had our other hospitals transferring patients that needed a higher level of care into that center.

At Hartford HealthCare, we really make sure we have what the community needs right where the community is. … To me, that just reflects better where we want to go in health care, how much more integrated we want to be and how much more connected to our community we need to be.

Q. What are your early priorities?

A. So for me, being brand new, (a key priority) is getting to know everybody. It’s making all those connections. It’s building all those relationships with the colleagues who are in the central region and do this amazing work, serving our community every day.

But it’s also our community. It’s our partners, it’s all my colleagues across Hartford HealthCare, and just folks in the space of health care in general.

I’m really just excited about getting completely plugged into the community here in Connecticut. That is definitely one of my priorities, building relationships, and then also being able to reconnect with folks that I’ve had relationships with.

Q. What’s the biggest challenge in your new role?

A. So, I would say the biggest challenge is really the stability of our colleagues. How are we supporting our colleagues? How are we making sure they have the tools that they need to serve every day? How are we stemming some of the outflow (of workers) from health care?

I think we’ve seen that really begin during COVID and continue, where people recognize how difficult this work is, even though it’s very meaningful, it’s very impactful.

But it’s not always easy, and I really want to understand how we can better support and wrap our arms around our colleagues, how we can continue to give them additional skills and strengths that are really going to support them to be able to be successful in the care of our community, support their aspirations in terms of their career goals, and then also create pathways for people to come into the healthcare space.