After nearly twenty years as a corporate executive, Thelma Duggin shifted her focus to the youth of our country whose potential for success she believes can be molded and supported through cooperative mentoring and guidance. She currently serves as President of the AnBryce Foundation which provides long-term academic and leadership enrichment programs to underserved youth.
Prior to her role with the AnBryce Foundation, Ms. Duggin served as a Senior Vice President at UnitedHealth Group (UHG), a Fortune 20 company and one of the largest health and well-being companies in the country. In this position, she worked with all business segments within UHG in identifying, developing and coordinating strategic projects, specifically as they relate to relationship management and business development.
Following the acquisition of AmeriChoice by UnitedHealth Group, Ms. Duggin served as Senior Vice President for the public sector line of business within UHG. In that capacity, she was responsible for all federal and state regulatory and legislative affairs, external communications and business development.
During her more than 15-year tenure with AmeriChoice, one the country’s leading providers of health care services to beneficiaries of government-sponsored health care programs, Ms. Duggin served in various senior management positions at the corporate and field level, including Regional President. She led the company’s New York and New Jersey health plans from start-up to operating entities with combined annual revenue of nearly $1 billion. In her corporate roles, she spearheaded the company’s development of innovative programs for underserved and uninsured populations, led the company’s successful and award-winning preventive health services program, and established a model disease management program for the underserved.
Ms. Duggin served in a number of senior policy positions in the federal government before joining the private sector. She began her federal service at the White House, where she served in the White House Office of Public Liaison as Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan. She next joined the U.S. Department of Transportation, where she ultimately served as Special Assistant to Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole.
Ms. Duggin holds a BS degree from Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin, and an honorary doctorate from Morris Brown College. She has been a Resident Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and The General Management Program at Harvard Business School.
Ms. Duggin is active in several professional organizations and serves on the Boards of Directors of the National Symphony Orchestra, as head of the Development and Special Events Committee and serves on its Executive Committee; the Washington Jesuit Academy; and The Georgetown Center for Hypertension, Kidney & Vascular Health. She recently was appointed by President Obama to the Board of Trustees of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Ms. Duggin is also an enthusiastic sportswoman, who bikes, hikes, skis, and, in the summer of 2005, successfully climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for the second time.
Ms. Duggin brings a unique perspective to her professional, community and charitable endeavors. Ms. Duggin was born and raised on Mon Luis Island on the Gulf Coast, a small, rural community 26 miles south of Mobile, Alabama. The islanders lived a subsistence existence. The island had a single paved road and boasted a one-room schoolhouse, which Ms. Duggin attended through sixth grade. Her world expanded in high school, when the Island’s Catholic parish arranged transportation to an all-black Catholic school in Mobile, and expanded even further when she won a scholarship to Edgewood College – her first venture out of the South, and her first experience in a predominantly white school. This courage and determination to succeed have motivated Ms. Duggin throughout her life, and have made her an inspiring and empathic leader to those around her.