Hospital CEOs to be honored at NVCC commencement with Board of Trustees Merit Award

John H. Tobin, president and CEO of Waterbury Hospital (left), and Robert P. Ritz, CEO of Saint Mary’s Hospital (right), will receive the Board of Trustees Merit Award from the Connecticut Community-Technical College System. The award was established to recognize extraordinary service or lifetime commitment to NVCC and the state’s community-technical college system.

WATERBURY (May 22, 2007) — The CEOs of the two hospitals in Waterbury will be honored Thursday, May 24, at Naugatuck Valley Community College’s commencement for the guidance and contributions their institutions have given to NVCC’s allied health and nursing programs over the past 30 years.

Robert P. Ritz, CEO of Saint Mary’s Hospital, and John H. Tobin, president and CEO of Waterbury Hospital, will each receive the Board of Trustees Merit Award from the Connecticut Community-Technical College System.

The award was established to recognize extraordinary service or lifetime commitment to NVCC and the state’s community-technical college system.

In addition to providing students in NVCC’s nursing and radiologic technician programs with clinical sites over the past 30 years, the two hospitals also have collaborated with NVCC on curriculum, provided the college with equipment to train students, and provided special scholarships to allied health and nursing students.

In addition, five years ago, the hospitals launched a partnership with NVCC to help fund additional clinical faculty that allowed the college to increase the size of its nursing program by about 10 percent, and thereby help alleviate the ongoing nursing shortage both locally and nationwide.

In addition to the Board of Trustee Merit Award ceremony, more than 500 NVCC students will be awarded associate degrees and certificates during the college’s commencement ceremony, which will begin at 6 p.m. on May 24 in Parking Lot C at Kinney Hall on the college’s campus, located at 750 Chase Parkway off exit 18 on Interstate 84.