A well-known Tri-City business leader is at the helm of Chaplaincy Health Care while the hospice agency seeks a leader to succeed Gary Castillo.

Bob Rosselli, who retired from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2002 and from the Columbia Basin College Foundation Board in 2014, stepped in as interim executive director after Castillo resigned effective
June 1 after 13 years with the nonprofit.

Castillo is credited with expanding Chaplaincy’s role in supporting patients and families facing terminal illnesses. He launched the behavioral health initiative, its Repeat Boutique thrift stores and palliative care for ill patients who are not eligible for hospice services.

“He has a tremendous amount of heart for the mission of the organization,” Rosselli said of Castillo. “He brought us our behavioral health mission. He brought us our thrift store mission.”

Castillo’s resignation came four months after financial pressures forced Chaplaincy to close its palliative care program, which he had started seven years earlier.

The Covid-19 pandemic affected its fee-paying services that helped support palliative care, which unlike hospice care is not covered by Medicare.

As an organization, Chaplaincy Health served 1,131 hospice patients and their families in 2020, 437 palliative care patients and 279 children and teens through its Cork’s Place grief program.

Chaplaincy depends on Medicare reimbursements, thrift store sales and donations to support its roughly $12 million budget, based on 2018 financial reports posted to Guidestar.com.

It serves an average of 160 hospice patients at a time, providing physical, social and spiritual support to people facing the end of their lives. It operates a hospice facility and serves patients in their homes.

Rosselli said the pandemic has curtailed many activities, including its reliance on volunteers. For safety reasons, volunteers are sidelined, though he hopes to bring them back when the pandemic eventually passes.

Too, it is more difficult to serve patients in their homes. Many are unwilling to admit nonrelatives, leading to a decline in the number of people it services. Rosselli expects the fear to drop as more people are vaccinated.

“We still take the precautions. But with people getting vaccinated, they’re opening up the doors,” he said.

Rosselli joined the Chaplaincy board about six years ago. He had previously volunteered as a youth coach and on numerous boards, even serving as interim president of Columbia Industries, which serves people with development disabilities and barriers to housing and employment.

Hospice, he said, offered an opportunity to learn about an aspect of the community he did not know.

He brings a deep well of management expertise and a familiarity with the organization to the interim role.

Chaplaincy has advertised the executive director position. As of April 24, it had received seven applications – one local and six from out of state. The board will make the final decision. No time frame has been set.

In the interim, Rosselli is doing what he has done in his prior management roles: He is managing.

He doesn’t have specific marching orders beyond maintaining the organization until a permanent director comes on.

“But I’m looking for areas to make organizational improvements to make our services more effective,” he said. He’s evaluating staffing levels to ensure it can comfortably support its mission and reviewing the training procedures to ensure newly hired staff are properly prepared for the role.

Rosselli came to the Tri-Cities in the 1980s with an master’s in business administration from Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business.

He worked as an administrator for DOE’s Richland Operations office, rising to deputy manager for business services by 1999.

He enjoyed retirement for six years before rejoining the workforce in 2008 to lead the Columbia Basin College Foundation. He said he is learned to enjoy retirement pursuits, including spending time with his wife, cooking, reading, hiking and bicycling.

He’s enjoying the interim position but said he’s eager to turn the reins over to the next director.