Rick Surpin

PHI Founder and Board Chair Rick Surpin was praised in INSEAD Knowledge on April 15 for creating successful, innovative business models that meet social needs.

Surpin is the president of the New York City–based Independence Care System (ICS), a nonprofit organization he established in 2000 to assist people with disabilities to live independently and to participate fully in community life.

He is also the founder and board chair of Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA), the South Bronx–based employee-owned home care agency that has been in operation since 1985.

INSEAD Knowledge, an international graduate business school publication, spotlights the success of ICS and CHCA, which Surpin measures by a “double bottom line — financial and social.”

“A ‘Design/Build’ Architect”

“In the world of architecture, there is a particularly inspired individual called the ‘design/build’ architect: someone who not only creates the vision, but also crafts the reality,” said PHI President Steven Dawson.

Dawson continued:

In the world of social entrepreneurship, Rick Surpin is a true design/build architect. He has imagined, and then created, Cooperative Home Care and Independence Care System — two social inventions genuinely designed around the people they serve. I’m deeply pleased to see that INSEAD Knowledge has recognized my friend, this ‘grizzled veteran,’ and his unique accomplishments.

Both ICS and CHCA are affiliated with PHI, which grew out of CHCA.

Surpin says he created ICS because he “saw that people with disabilities were treated as though they were ‘invisible,’ just like their carers. They were viewed as having unusual problems that could not be easily addressed, and many of their basic needs were ignored.”

The article notes that as a community development worker years ago, Surpin observed that “home healthcare aides were treated as second-class citizens. Most tend to work part-time, earn minimum pay, have no benefits such as sick days or health insurance, and receive only minimum training as required by regulation.”

– by Deane Beebe