During the past year the Board and staff leadership have spent a good deal of time strategically evaluating our organization. We reviewed the past, studied the present, and developed a vision for our future. Resulting from this process is:

A new mission statement:  “Our mission is to offer those we serve health, hope, happiness and opportunity.”

A new vision statement: “We will be the regional employer, provider, and partner of choice. We are determined to be the best we can be. We will embrace innovation and change. We can and we will make a difference.”

And a new name: Harbor

I bet your first response was: “That’s not a new name.” And I’m glad if you reacted that way.

Now the rest of the story: In March, the Board of Directors took action to change the name of our organization from Harbor Behavioral Healthcare to Harbor. Market research has shown that Harbor Behavioral Healthcare has strong recognition and reputation ratings in the community. We did not want to do anything to our name that would confuse or jeopardize this status. It was also identified that clients and referral sources for some of our newer services (wellness, vocational, developmental pediatrics, primary care, adult day habitation) questioned the “Behavioral Healthcare” label. While we are still the leader in behavioral and mental health services, we have also expanded and diversified into these related, new services that are not typically classified as behavioral healthcare. With this diversification we determined it was essential to update our name to reflect our expanded mission. We do not want our name to limit the success of our diversification into new areas of service. Also, from a pragmatic point of view, many (of you) already referred to us as simply - Harbor.  While this name change provides a platform for a significant transformation of our organization, we also believe it will not create confusion nor take anything away from our established community awareness.  Watch for signs of how this name change will allow us to better identify the services we provide and extend our existing brand equity.

- Dale Shreve, CEO