Keystone Human Services

KEY Service Systems, Inc.

Staff Biographies

Mark Ritter, President
E-mail: mritter @ keystonehumanservices.org
Mark Ritter began his employment with Keystone Service Systems in 1980 and in the ensuing years assumed the duties of Vice President, responsible for large division of the agency providing community residential services to several hundred children and adults. Among other activities, Mr. Ritter participated in the development of the first small ICF/MR programs in central Pennsylvania and was instrumental in assuming responsibility for services provided by several failing agencies, turning them around, and successfully incorporating them within Keystone.
In 1989, Mark developed proposals which resulted in contracts with the Connecticut Department of Developmental Services. As Keystone's lead person in Connecticut, he was personally instrumental in incorporating Key Service systems, acquiring properties, hiring staff, training personnel, licensing three homes and ultimately taking eight people with extremely challenging behavior out of Mansfield State Center within a six month period.
Today, Key is a comprehensive provider of services and essentially looks like and functions as a microcosm of Keystone. The agency operates a variety of programs including group homes, a supported living program, early intervention services, foster care, and a home health agency, which exclusively serves people with mental retardation. Key also subcontracts specialized nursing services to fifteen other non-profit organizations.
Mark has served as the Chairman of the Board of the Connecticut Community Providers Association (CCPA), the principal trade association of Connecticut's mental retardation, behavioral health, and medical rehabilitation organizations. In that capacity, Mark took a lead role in this sector's managed care activities and facilitated CCPA's merger with another trade group. He also is manager in Residence for DDS's Waiting List Task Force.
Mark holds two graduate degrees from Pennsylvania State University, including a degree in rehabilitation.
Mark E. Kovitch, CPA, Chief Financial Officer
E-mail: mkovitch @ keystonehumanservices.org
Mark began his employment with KEY Service Systems, Inc in March of 2001 as the Chief Financial Officer. His responsibilities include financial management of KEY; monitoring adequate internal accounting controls and compliance with financial, State, and Federal regulations; and coordinating all financial aspect of proposals to funding sources. Mark has also served as the HIPAA Privacy Officer for KEY.
Mark is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Mark came to KEY from the public accounting firm environment specializing in providing accounting, auditing, and consulting services to not-for-profit, higher education, and governmental entities. These eight years of experience provided the solid background and knowledge in financial reporting; individual and corporate tax filing; State and Federal regulation compliance, and the internal financial operation of a not-for-profit that KEY requires.
Mark is a serves on the steering committee of the Connecticut Community Providers Association/Connecticut Association of Nonprofits' Business Manager's Forum. As part of this leadership position, Mark meets with State officers regularly to present private providers' point of view on various fiscal matters and was part of the committee of state officers and private providers that created the regulations for individual living in Community Living Arrangement to have portability of funding.
Mark is also a member of the American Institute of CPA's, National Society of Accountants, and Connecticut Society of CPA's. Mark serves on Not-for-profit Committee of the Connecticut Society of CPA's, Saint Maria Goretti Church Parish Council and Finance Committee.
Gregory J. Damato, Vice President - Community Living Arrangement
E-mail: gdamato @ keystonehumanservices.org
Greg has many varied experiences working with people who have developmental disabilities. Currently, he is Vice-President for KEY Service Systems in Farmington where he manages twelve group homes statewide. Previously, Greg worked for the Connecticut Department of Developmental Servicesfor 31 years. During his employment with DDS, he held such positions as Director of Quality Enhancement and Director of Training and Staff Development for the North Central Region. As the Director of Staff Development, he was instrumental in developing and teaching a course based on the principles of adult learning for Abuse and Neglect Investigators. In addition to his teaching experience, Greg brings extensive experience conducting investigations to this course. He has a Master's degree in Special Education from Central Connecticut State University and resides with his family in West Hartford, where he coaches several teams including baseball and basketball.
Joyce Lewis, Service Director
E-mail: jlewis @ keystonehumanservices.org
Joyce Lewis came to Key Service Systems in 1993 after 10 years with the Department of Developmental Services. She was a State Schoolteacher, primarily in the Eastern Region Early Intervention Program. She has a Master's Degree in Special Education with a concentration in Infant and Toddler Development from the University of Connecticut. Shortly after her first child was born with a congenital syndrome severely affecting both her health and development, Ms. Lewis left her employment. She stayed at home with her medically fragile daughter until she passed away. During this time she experienced Birth to Three services as the parent as well as benefiting from parent groups.
In 1993, Ms. Lewis developed the Birth to Three programs for Key under a fee for service model. She participated in the transition process with the new lead agency, DDS. At that time Key became one of 11 comprehensive programs in the North Central Region. Under this system, the agency provides for all of the identified needs of each child and family for one set rate.
Ric Wilkinson Ph.D., R.N.,C., Service Director
E-mail: rwilkins @ keystonehumanservices.org
Ric Wilkinson recently became part of the Key Service Systems, Inc. team with over 25 years of nursing experience. Prior to his nursing career, Ric served in the United States Air Force as an air evacuation medic. He was part of an air evac wing that transported wounded individuals back from the Vietnam War. After discharge from the USAF, he challenged the LPN state nursing exam and went to work in the emergency room at a large teaching hospital in the south.
While working as an LPN, Ric attended the University of Alabama in Birmingham and was in the pre-med and then later in the psychology program. After working as an LPN and attending the university, he decided to go to Providence School of Nursing in Mobile, Alabama. During Ric's third year in nursing school, he left the Intensive Care environment to work in the field of chemical dependency.
His substance abuse nursing took him first to Biloxi, Mississippi as an assistant nurse manager then to Shreveport, Louisiana as a nurse manager and program director. It was in Shreveport that Ric began working with the dually diagnosed (mental illness and substance abuse). In 1987 Ric moved to the northeast and went to work at the Institute of Living as part of their Dual Diagnosis treatment program.
Ric has held various positions since relocating to the northeast. He has been a Clinical Nurse Specialist for addictions, a Program Director of a dual diagnosis day treatment program, Clinical and Administrative Director of a counseling center, and a Clinical Educator as well as a Director of Education for a large behavioral health system in Harford. He most recently was the Director of Intensive Psychiatric services at Manchester Memorial Hospital overseeing the Emergency Psychiatric Services, Consultation Liaison Services and both Adult and Adolescent Inpatient Programs.
He has been involved in addictions related research at the University of Connecticut and is currently a principal investigator for a research project out of Smith College of Social Work looking at a community crisis intervention program first developed in Denmark.
Ric has a diploma in Nursing, a Masters degree in Development Psychology and is finishing his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology in December 2005. He is certified in Addictions as well as Psychiatric Mental Health nursing. He also hold a post graduate certificate in Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy from the Boston School of Modern Psychoanalysis. He is an Adjunct Professor of Nursing at the University of Connecticut School of Nursing and has a small private practice in psychotherapy in West Hartford.
Mary Beth O'Neill, Division Director
E-mail: moneill @ keystonehumanservices.org
Mary Beth O'Neill began her employment with Key Service Systems, Inc. in January 1997. She began her career as a lobbyist and advocate in Boston while attending Merrimack College. Upon graduation in 1992, Mary Beth returned to Connecticut to work with individuals residing in Supported Living programs in two other non-profits. She was hired by Key Service Systems as a Program Director to manage the Supported Living department in West Hartford, CT.
Since 1997, she has worked to broaden the support services offered by Key Service Systems to include young adults who desire independence and families who require support maintaining their home. Mary Beth continues to pursue her education by focusing her class work on a Special Education Interdisciplinary Masters Degree at Southern Connecticut State University. She continues to lobby and advocate strongly for individuals with disabilities.
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This page last updated on:
October 5, 2007