CHP Names New CEO to Lead Berkshire Healthcare Network

12:08PM / Wednesday, June 07, 2023Print Story | Email Story

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Community Health Programs has named Bethany Kieley as its new chief executive officer, effective July 17, 2023.

She will oversee the countywide healthcare network caring for more than 30,000 patients in the region.

Kieley is currently the chief operations officer at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center, a large federally qualified health center serving the New Haven, Connecticut region. Previously, she worked for nearly 12 years with ProHealth Physicians, a large medical practice network in Connecticut where she became vice president of practice operations, programs and services.

She also worked as the chief operating officer for Women's Care Florida, and in her earlier career, she held administrative roles with medical practices in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

"Ms. Kieley brings an impressive healthcare executive background, expertise in medical practice development and a strong commitment to the work of federally qualified health centers, which provide health care to all," said Brian Drake, president of the CHP board. "She will be a strong asset to CHP Berkshires and the wider Berkshire community as we move forward."

Drake commended interim CEO, Richard "Rick" Gregg for his steady and dedicated leadership during the last year.

"Rick helped strengthen CHP's medical and operational leadership, renewed CHP's partnership with the Berkshire Fallon accountable care organization in partnership with Berkshire Health Systems, and stood as a strong advocate for CHP's mission," said Drake. "We are grateful to Rick for setting an excellent stage for our next CEO." Gregg will return to Suffolk University's full-time faculty, where he will continue to teach healthcare administration.

Kieley earned her master's degree in business administration from Plymouth State University and completed a healthcare executive leadership program at Stanford University. She earned her bachelor's degree in music and business from DePaul University. In her community in New Haven, she has served as a volunteer and board member for Literacy Volunteers of Southern Connecticut.

A New Englander, she hails from Newport, R.I. and grew up in Claremont, N.H. She enjoys travel, hiking, biking and kayaking in her free time.

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Lee Wants Bioremediation in Housatonic River Vernal Pool Study

05:24AM / Thursday, September 03, 2026

LEE, Mass. — The town has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric to include PCB bioremediation in its vernal pool study on the Housatonic River.

Lee officials are urging the EPA to require GE to add a bioremediation treatment arm to the vernal-pool study or provide the public with a clear explanation for why such testing is being excluded.

"This is exactly the kind of question EPA and GE should be asking before final remedy decisions are locked in," Select Board Chair Bob Jones said in a statement released to the press. "The town is not asking to slow the cleanup. We are asking EPA and GE to make the cleanup smarter, less destructive, and more protective over the long term."

An open house was held in Pittsfield earlier this summer for the Vernal Pool Pilot Study on Reach 5A of the Housatonic River, a five-mile stretch between the river's confluence and Lenox border.

EPA has required GE to conduct a Vernal Pool Pilot Study as part of the Housatonic River Rest of River remediation, comparing excavation and restoration with activated-carbon-based treatments, including a product called SediMite and powdered activated carbon, the town said.

Ten vernal pools will be cleaned of polychlorinated biphenyls in total, five with excavation and five with active carbon, and seven additional vernal pools will be monitored as controls. Construction will be complete around October, but the pools will be left to their natural processes and monitored with surveys and sampling for three years.

The Lee PCB Advisory Committee wrote a letter calling for the 21st-century approach it said could reduce long-term toxicity, avoid unnecessary destruction of sensitive habitats, and improve the effectiveness of the cleanup.

It states that Lee supports the study's purpose and agrees that EPA and GE must understand how cleanup activities affect sensitive vernal-pool ecosystems.

"The current pilot includes 10 treatment pools and seven control pools, while local officials understand that roughly 100 vernal pools may occur in the broader remediation corridor," the Aug. 27 letter reads.

"That makes the pilot study consequential: the methods tested now could shape how many sensitive wetlands are excavated, reconstructed, treated, or left with PCBs managed in place."

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