ReServist Among 50 Honored for ‘Clear and Bold Vision’

ReServist and AARP honoree Cyril Brosnan

Photo by Kyle Fischer

ReServist Cyril Brosnan, who has devoted more than half of his 79 years to helping others, is one of 50 volunteers honored by the NewYork State AARP as part of the organization’s 50^th anniversary celebration.

Each of the 50 honorees, including dancer and choreographer Judith Jamison, Wall Street lioness Muriel Siebert, and ReServe founders Jack Rosenthal and Herb Sturz, was cited for nonprofit service demonstrating “a clear and bold vision for ensuring that New Yorkers can age with vitality, independence, choice and peace of mind.”

For more than 40 years, as a salaried employee or volunteer, Brosnan has been a soft-spoken but relentless pursuer of fair deals for communities in need of assistance. Most often, his drive has been for improved healthcare and housing.

Cyril was born and educated in Chicago, where his Ph.D. research was noted by a New York University economist who later became a secretary to Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. At the secretary’s invitation, in 1967 Cyril joined Rockefeller’s New York State Health Planning Commission.

He moved to the corporate sector in 1973 with Empire BlueCross BlueShield, where he rose to become president of its Health Services Improvement Fund. There he fostered and implemented projects designed to improve the financing, planning, organization and delivery of health care services.

Soon after, he moved into the nonprofit sector, first as a coordinator of the National Committee for Voluntary Sector Leadership on AIDS for the National Health Council, and later as  Director of Public Affairs for the Actors Fund of America. There he not only increased access to health care for entertainment professionals, he also developed housing for performers in need. Simultaneously, Cyril served pro-bono on the boards of several humanitarian organizations, including the Medicare Rights Center, the National AIDS Housing Coalition and the Medical & Health Research Association of New York, now known as Public Health Solutions. He says his tenure at the latter organization taught him particularly valuable lessons in tactics that promote, finance and implement effective health care.

AARP solicited recommendations for its 50^th anniversary awards from individuals and organizations in New York. Cyril was nominated by SAGE (an acronym for Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders). Brosnan was working at Empire BlueCross BlueShield when he met SAGE Executive Director Ken Dawson at a party and was struck by the group’s purpose to respond to this disturbing statistic: Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender seniors, according to Sage, “may be as much as five times less likely to access needed health and social services because of their fear of discrimination from the very people who should be helping them.”

Dawson wanted volunteers to help SAGE’s constituents, and Cyril became one of the organization’s most active. He began by working as a programmer, advocate and membership recruiter. Then his expertise on housing issues prompted an invitation to the board, where he remained for seven years.

Cyril remains active in providing services to seniors but has resigned from all directorships. “The bureaucratic politics involved,” he explains, “is a real test of one’s serenity.”

As a ReServist, Cyril works at the New York Academy of Medicine. He says he learned about ReServe in Spring 2007 from a lecturer at a conference for advocates. He contacted Claire Haaga Altman, a casual acquaintance and ReServe Executive Director at the time, and applied.  Soon after he had an assignment with NYAM.

“I wanted to be involved with health and human services and implementing change,” he says. But as all ReServists understand, he was no longer willing to work pro bono. He believes that organizations fail to take seriously any effort by someone who works for free, which, of course, is ReServe’s philosophy. Cyril aims to be taken seriously.

At the Academy of Medicine, where he says “it’s a joy to be involved with this work,” he manages forums, focus groups and roundtable discussions-sometimes with several hundred seniors at a time. These groups from a variety of New York communities gather to explain how their communities serve them well and how they don’t.

ReServist Cyril Brosnan with NYAM policy associate Jessica Walker

Photo by Kyle Fischer

Communities fail elders, Cyril says, when streets and parks aren’t clean, when transportation is expensive and hard to access, and when local officials ignore or belittle seniors’ needs. One wry complaint: A park created specifically for seniors lacked bathrooms. Recently such topics have been replaced with the urgent concerns of money and housing.

After an initial round of these sessions, Brosnan’s team drew up a summary report and is helping to organize a summit with New York officials. His team hopes that leaders will appoint a commission to ensure that seniors’ concerns are addressed. Young bureaucrats, Cyril argues, should never presume to know what seniors want or need, nor should they disregard those needs.

With all that Brosnan has accomplished, is there anything he has missed?  “I’m still wishing to be an instrument of change.”