Feb. 25, 2004 – Founder of Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA), the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI) and Independence Care System (ICS), Rick Surpin has been a leader in the effort to promote quality jobs for home health aides and other direct-care workers. That leadership was recognized when Surpin was named an “Outstanding Social Entrepreneur” for 2004 by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. Through international and regional meetings and supporting its outstanding entreprenuers, the Schwab Foundation promotes addressing social problems through innovative services, products, and approaches that are nonideological, practical, and replicable.

Surpin founded CHCA in 1985 and served as the company’s president until he launched ICS in 2000. CHCA was the country’s first worker-owned home care agency, and now employs over 750 home health aides, 70 percent of whom own shares in the company. Independence Care System is a managed care agency that supports people living with severe disabilities; many ICS clients rely on home health aides from CHCA to support and assist them so they can live independently in the community. The synergy of these two enterprises, along with the nonprofit PHI, which promotes the quality jobs/quality care model across the nation, has catapulted Surpin’s vision into the forefront of today’s discussions about the future of caring for America’s elderly and disabled populations.