Community Concepts gets new operations director

Photo: contributed

Laurie Winsor, of Bethel, will be stepping into Richard Card's  role as Community Concepts' Director of Operations in January, when Card retires.

OXFORD HILLS — The latest temporary worker at Community Concepts is Laurie Winsor, the Chief Operating Officer.

The Chief Operating Officer is an integral part of the organization's management team, according to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mike Burke. But, she's going to hold that title only a short time, before moving to Richard Card's desk as Director of Operations, from which he will retire in early 2011.

With more than 300 employees and an annual budget in the $28 million range, heading up the operations of the agency is no small job, but both Winsor and Burke believe she's up to it. Previously, Winsor has worked Androscoggin Health Care and Hospice. She's also had years of experience in private sector advertising and marketing.

C0mmunity Concepts, the multi-purpose nonprofit service that serves Oxford, Androscoggin and Franklin Counties since 1965, hired Winsor to develop, interpret and coordinate the agency's many programs offered to people and families of all ages and backgrounds to find, and use, the assistance they need.

Winsor, who grew up in Fairfield, CT, graduated with a degree in political science from Southern Connecticut State University and then did her graduate work, leading to a Master of Public Administration from Syracuse University. She moved to Maine in 1980 and has recently moved with her husband to Bethel. She was previously a resident of Greene.

An important function of Community Concepts is securing funding grants, often from federal programs and then bringing the project into existence. These efforts over the years have provided early childhood care and intervention, housing weatherization, volunteer driver networks, owner-built home technical assistance, credit counseling, economic development, to name but a few.

While hard lines don't exist in the job definitions, Burke, as CEO, will be more active in planning, while executing the plans will fall to Winsor, as DOO.

But every source of funding, private, state or federal, monitors both the results and the means by which they are attained. Not all are the same, some may even be superficially contradictory. It will be Winsor's job to see that the agency's multiple efforts are concentrated on the effort to help Western Mainers survive, or even get ahead.