With the merger between Ravenwood Health and Ashtabula-based Community Counseling Center less than a month away, outgoing Ravenwood Health President and CEO Vicki Clark feels confident leaving the organization in CCC President and CEO Paul Bolino’s hands.
With the merger between Ravenwood Health and Ashtabula-based Community Counseling Center less than a month away, outgoing Ravenwood Health President and CEO Vicki Clark feels confident leaving the organization in CCC President and CEO Paul Bolino’s hands.
“We have our leadership team in place. Most of the staff are onboarded,” Clark said Jan. 20.
The merger is scheduled to be complete by Feb. 2, according to a previous press release.
“Day one is obviously getting the staff from Ashtabula onboarded and making sure we don’t miss a beat with paying our staff, as well as the continuation of benefit programs so the folks don’t experience any interruption,” Bolino said.
There will be no workforce reductions as part of the merger, he said, noting that as of Feb. 2, Ravenwood Health will be the employer of all staff and the CCC name will be retired.
There is a behavioral health workplace shortage and Ravenwood wants to build services, Bolino said.
Clark and Bolino said they expect the transition to be smooth for all involved, including clients.
“I truly don’t believe our clients will see any lapse in service, change in service, issues with service,” Clark said. “Everything will keep going as it has been.”
Their top priority is ensuring there is no interruption in client care, Bolino said.
“It should be seamless,” he said. “For our folks coming in in Ashtabula for example, there’ll be a different name that we’ll be using, but the same service providers and same services will be provided.”
Combining the agencies allows for funding opportunities they did not have while separate, Clark said.
“We also have some services that are the same in each county and being able to combine them gives some additional coverage, just some additional depth to what we can do,” she said.
The merger also allows them to build scale, Bolino said.
“Together, we’re a larger operational budget with more employees. That gets us better buying power on the market in terms of ongoing employee benefit costs and just operational costs in general,” he said.
While both leaders received many questions about how the merger will affect community partners and clients, they said support has been strong.
“People seem to understand overall the importance of, one, ensuring the services will continue, and that organizations have to continue to grow and develop to make sure we’re in place to provide those services,” Bolino said.
Clark said she and Bolino have known each other for many years and have explored the idea of a merger for a long time.
“I think it was well thought out. I think our teams kind of saw it coming. And knock on wood, we’ve still got two weeks to go, but it’s just gone beautifully,” she said.
Clark and Bolino said the hard work has been on the leadership and staff, who have been diligent in making the merger a success.
Upon the merger’s finalization, Clark will retire and Bolino will take her position.
While Clark described stepping away as bittersweet, she said believes the organization is in good hands.
“Not that I’m not incredibly sad and don’t have moments, but I believe what we’re doing is the absolute right step,” she said. “I think Paul is the right leader for this time that we’re going into. The leadership team that we’ve brought to the table is strong, stable, solid. They’re pretty incredible people. So yes, I feel very comfortable.”
Clark has led Ravenwood for 13 years and served it for 40, according to previous reporting.
While Clark may be difficult to follow, Bolino said he feels ready to take the reins.
“Vicki is huge footsteps to follow in, with what Vicki’s done there, but I’m confident with it and I’m comfortable just because Vicki and I have discussed this so long and put so much thought into this process, and didn’t do it until the time was right on both parts,” he said.
A lot of work went into planning the merged organization, he said.
“This is not a reactive merger when one organization is in trouble,” Bolino said. “This was looking to the future of how can we better serve Northeast Ohio.”
