Before long, Kevin Altomari (a self-proclaimed “easy cry”) is doing just that while speaking affectionately about his late wife, Dawn Gideon (HPM ’83). Known by many at the School of Public Health as the namesake of an annual seminar and scholarship program in the Department of Health Policy and Management (HPM), Gideon was a committed health care executive and inspirational leader.
“I met Dawn in 1978 when I was 22,” says Altomari. “Throughout our 36-year marriage, she was managing projects all over country, which made the time we spent together all the more important. I am a better person today because of Dawn.”
Gideon found success helping to steer struggling health care organizations through bankruptcy toward financial recovery. She began her career in Pittsburgh-based health care systems, eventually founding her own company, Transition Management Group, which she later sold to Huron Consulting. She also found passion in mentoring young women in a traditionally male-dominated field.
Gideon’s commitment to the organizations and individuals that sought her expertise didn’t change when she was diagnosed with breast cancer for a second time in 2014. (Initially treated in 2005, she remained cancer-free for many years.)
“When Dawn was first diagnosed, I would pick her up at the airport on a Thursday and we would head to Magee [UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital] for blood work,” says Altomari. “She’d have chemo on Friday, spend Saturday and Sunday on the couch and be back on the plane for work on Monday.” At the time, explains Altomari, she worked for St. Vincent’s Medical Center in New York City.
While her friends joked that Gideon would be the one still working after they all retired, she also knew how to have fun.
“Dawn was just a wonderful and remarkable person, and she loved clothes and shoes,” laughs classmate Linda Antonelli (HPM ’83), reminiscing about their dinner club and fondness for food, wine and traveling (particularly to Hilton Head Island, S.C., where they enjoyed many sunsets on the beach.) Antonelli met Gideon in 1980 as they stood in line at the University’s bookstore, along with two other health administration graduate students, Margie Guglin (HPM ’83) and Linda LoCascio (HPM ’83)—all of whom remained life-long friends.
Within a month of Gideon’s passing in June 2015, it was Antonelli who Altomari contacted to begin planning how to best honor her.
“I was already talking to her friends about how we could do something for her legacy at the wake,” admits Altomari. “In July, I called a good friend of hers [Antonelli] and told her what I would like to do. And she said, ‘Kevin, it's only been a month,’ and I said, ‘You know, Dawn. You can't let grass grow under your feet. You gotta keep moving.’”
They soon hit upon an idea to start a scholarship program for women pursuing master's degrees in health care administration—one that includes a strong mentoring component so the recipients can support one another as their careers bloom. They also felt it was important to incorporate an educational element to spread knowledge and information about advances and issues in the field.
Soon after, Altomari—with Antonelli, Guglin and LoCascio serving as board members—formed the Dawn Gideon Foundation. One of the first beneficiaries of their new scholarship program was HPM at the then-Graduate School of Public Health. (A new undergraduate program precipitated the school’s name change in 2022.)
“The scholarship program has come full circle and is a living legacy to Dawn,” says Kevin Broom, PhD, MBA, associate professor and vice chair of education in HPM, under whose stewardship it has flourished. “Kevin [Altomari] gives his time and energy to perpetuating the program, and the Dawn Gideon scholars themselves have created a close community and connection to one another.”
To-date, the foundation has funded 26 scholars, 16 of them through HPM’s program, and others through the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education and Huron Consulting. In addition to being surrounded by a network of experts throughout their graduate education, the students “get insight into the field from day one,” adds Broom, also director of MHA and MHA/MBA programs for the department.
The scholarship enabled Mara Menk, MHA/MBA (HPM ’22), strategy consultant at the UPMC Health Plan, to work on her residency and focus more exclusively on learning.
“One of the key reasons I came to Pitt was because of the scholarship program,” says Menk. “I met with a few people from the foundation and had been reading about Dawn Gideon. I started to think, ‘Wow, I’m really excited about being part of this group who are working toward the same goal.’”
Menk adds that she appreciated the ways that Altomari made Gideon very tangible to the scholars even though they never had the opportunity to meet her.
“I think for the [scholarship] recipients, we feel like we're working toward a real legacy,” says Menk. “Because Dawn was an actual person, we have a good idea about what she accomplished and we want to work toward that same thing. What she did during her lifetime was truly amazing.”
As the first Dawn Gideon Scholarship recipient—in 2016, Kristin Free, MHA (HPM ’18), senior manager medical economics at CVS Health , has similarly stayed engaged in the foundation’s mission. She currently serves on its board of directors.
“There are so many people at the foundation who are really passionate about what they do,” states Free. “They are happy to talk to you and give you career advice, or to just bounce ideas off of. This can impact your career path and even your life in general.”
Free, who has acted as a mentor in her places of employment, particularly appreciates the foundation’s emphasis on creating a community among scholars and connections outside of the classroom. “It’s important to have a safe space to talk to someone in a nonjudgmental way, especially when it comes to women mentoring other women,” she says.
In addition to the scholarship program, HPM holds an annual Dawn Gideon Symposium to fulfill the foundation’s educational mission. The event features experts in the field discussing topical issues in health care and public health along with audience engagement and healthy debate.
Altomari couldn’t be more grateful. “The foundation I started to honor Dawn’s legacy continues to grow beyond my expectations,” he shares. “I am amazed at the life and strength the family of scholars have given to Dawn’s memory and the sheer pride I feel as they grow and meet the challenges that life and careers bring.”
-Clare Collins
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This year’s Dawn Gideon Symposium, “Rural Health at a Crossroads: Reinventing for the New Economy,” is taking place 1-2:30 p.m., Monday, October 30, virtually and in person. Registration is recommended.
Donations to the Dawn Gideon Foundation can be made on the foundation’s website