Our Community Ambassadors
Our Corporators are part of the critical partnership among Hartford HealthCare’s Hartford Region Board of Directors, hospital leadership, the medical staff, and the community that strengthens Hartford Hospital as a vital healthcare resource in our region.
Hartford Hospital Corporators are innovators, leaders, and active members of our community, and they play an important role in encouraging participation and educating our communities about the hospital’s services and activities. Corporators also provide the hospital with valuable feedback and communication, helping us identify the best ways to contribute to the healthcare needs of the communities we serve.
In your role as a Hartford Hospital Corporator, you should always feel free to direct comments or questions to Lynn Rossini, VP of Philanthropy at Lynn.Rossini@hhchealth.org or 860.972.2162.
Learn More About Hartford Hospital Corporators
A Brief History of Hartford Hospital Corporators
Corporators have served as Hartford Hospital ambassadors since the early 1880s. According to The Healing Triangle: Hartford Hospital’s First 150 Years (Bruce Clouette and Brian Lever), “In the 1880s, the hospital’s Board of Directors reached out to the influential and well-to-do members of the community by designating many of them as corporators.” Corporators served as a critical link between the community and Hartford Hospital, continuing a connection that started nearly 30 years earlier when an industrial explosion that killed and injured many people motivated the community to found the area’s first hospital in 1854.
Just as Corporators do today, the first Corporators lent their reputation to the hospital and helped with fundraising. Connecticut’s 1890 Report of the State Board of Charities lists P.M. Hastings, MD, as the hospital’s first corporator, having been elected in 1882.
Among the corporators to follow Hastings were the business, medical, and social leaders of the day, including Samuel L. Clemens (aka Mark Twain), who was elected a Corporator in 1887.
At last count, Hartford Hospital Corporators numbered 412. As the Afterword of The Healing Triangle states: “Today, the hospital is still ‘owned’ by the community it serves and is responsive to the needs of that community. … The people who serves as the hospital’s corporators and board members are unpaid volunteers who represent a breadth of diverse experience and background. The course they set for the hospital is immediately and directly impacted by the needs they identify in their own everyday lives, as well as the needs of their neighbors and the broader community of which they are a part.”
May we help you?
We want to make it easy for you to be an ambassador for Hartford Hospital.
We are here to assist you in your role as Hartford Hospital’s eyes and ears in the community. We are also available to facilitate your access to hospital services and programs. Call us if there is anything that we can do to help you, your family, your friends, or your neighbors navigate Hartford Hospital.
Call Us 860.972.2162