Mark Masselli has been a major innovator in the community health center space.
He started Middletown-based Community Health Center as a standalone clinic in 1972 with a group of Wesleyan University students and community activists, and built it into a leading federally qualified, independent, nonprofit healthcare provider in the state, offering comprehensive primary care services in medicine, dentistry, and behavioral health to more than 145,000 people, particularly lower-income underserved patients.
He’s been known for bringing an entrepreneurial spirit to CHC, which is coming off a major expansion in 2019. Last year the health system debuted a $47-million expansion, adding three new healthcare sites totaling 81,400 square feet — in Hartford, Middletown and Stamford — that expanded primary care access to an additional 16,000 low-income patients.
Masselli is also active in global human rights issues having worked with the Dalai Lama on issues facing the Tibetan people.