“After more than thirty years at the helm of the Mental Health Association of Connecticut, President and Chief Executive Officer Beverly A. Walton intends to disembark the ship.

A red-hot question often asked is: how did it happen, 35 years ago, that this alumna of Mount Holyoke College, an economics major, no less, got involved in mental health advocacy. No good clue can be found in her college participation in the Fellowship of Faiths, or the Glee Club, or staffing the Mount Holyoke (campus) News.

Actually, Bev’s early after-college work seemed very much in line with her economics education and approach, including her keen analytical skills and her ability to interpret data and statistics. Each of those strengths was surely of use at the Travelers Insurance Company where Bev worked through the 1950s.

By the 1960s, Bev had become very active with the League of Women voters, authoring a regular feature, the “Capitol Report” appearing in the League’s newsletter, and speaking at sundry meetings as the League’s Chairperson of the Committee on Connecticut Finances. These roles too, are impressive. But how did they move Bev into the arena of mental health services and advocacy?

Here's some background: Beginning in the 1950s, change was in the air. There were faint but perceptible gestures that Connecticut aimed to strengthen community-based mental health services, moving from a system of care for mental illness which poured the main investment of public resources into three state hospitals, one of which was an institution Clifford Beers writes about in "A Mind That Found Itself," the book you all now have.

Also in that same decade, improvements in use of medications for severe and chronic mental illness were being recognized. And the demand for patients' fundamental rights to treatment, not just storage (consult your Beers book), was becoming more insistent and more public. Change was further invited as newspaper exposes of patient mistreatment and exploitation were widely read. Much of the needed change would come from strengthening state and federal laws.

By the early 1970s, the Mental Health Association was desperately in need of someone who knew Connecticut’s legislative scene, someone who knew how a bill became law in this state, a person who was at ease speaking at public hearings and generally quite comfortable raising Hell in order to garner support for the association’s legislative agenda. Beverly, the smart, witty, sassy veteran of League of Women Voters programs seemed just right, and that was her 1973 entry through the portal to mental health programs.

I was a member of the MHAC search committee which interviewed Beverly 35 years ago for the position of legislative liaison, or whatever the position was called in those days—perhaps director of legislative activities? or principal lobbyist for the association? Something like that. I suppose my experience in that interview, dazzled as I was by Bev’s presentation and by her self-confidence is what makes me, among current MHAC board members, a suitable person to be reflecting on the MHAC course steered by Bev these several decades.

Since Bev's early MHAC days the years have brought some caution to a private non-profit agency's efforts to affect legislation. Any reference to lobbying activities by the agency must be watered down. It’s all tied up with the organization’s non-profit status. If too much lobbying is done then the agency will be shadowed by the Internal Revenue Service. But, thanks to Bev's resourcefulness, we still play an active role, although never, never do we call it “lobbying,” it’s “public affairs” or “public policy” work now.

In 1978, five years after she was hired to shoulder legislative responsibilities for our agency, Bev became the President of the association. She brought substantial change to an organization which had been somewhat interior-focused, spending much time, and other resources, maintaining 5 sub-offices and 5 boards throughout the state. That elaborate structure may have resulted from the Clifford Beers' 1908 model of organizing the Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene. The Beers' model was built on the premise that needed changes in mental health care would come from collegial influences by so-called "important" establishment-connected people in the community. It was a workable premise for the turn of the century, but required serious rethinking by mid-century.

Bev saw clearly that any substantial change in business-as-usual in mental health services would require some confrontation with the establishment (“…first, you have to get their attention, then we can talk…”), and that the voices of consumers of services would be most compelling. Bev cut 5 sub-offices of the association throughout the state, and their boards.

Bev went on to lead the agency to provide direct services to clients, establishing programs in 8 locations throughout the state, including Connecticut's first rehabilitation program for deaf and hearing impaired clients. When Bev became President the organization served no clients directly, today we serve more than 700 persons each year.

When Bev arrived, MHAC had an annual budget of less than $150,000.00. These days, we operate with an annual budget of more than $9 million and we have substantial assets in real estate and in an investment portfolio. Other selected achievements of the association during Beverly's years are mentioned in the center spread in this evening's program book. Read and be delighted!

But well beyond the dollar value, and the extensive program activity built by Bev, our out-going president's most widely acknowledged achievement, remarkable both within and outside of the agency, has been her superb skill in selection of talented, knowledgeable, resourceful and dedicated staff for the agency. These women and men are an asset, brought together by Beverly, that would be impossible to duplicate.

Now, I turn to the architect herself, the woman who has created so much for our organization, Bev, get ready to receive a gift which comes from a grateful Mental Health Association of Connecticut. It boldly declares that your leadership years show everywhere the association thrives and grows.