Filling Big Shoes, Her Own Way: Heather Alge’s Journey From DSP to CEO

When Heather Alge first entered the disability services field, she wasn’t planning to make it her career.

She was 18. She was living on her own. She needed a full-time job with health insurance.

More than two decades later, Heather has gone from DSP to CEO of The Fogarty Center, an organization that supports thousands of people with disabilities across Rhode Island. She also took over for David Reiss, who led the organization for 34 years, leaving big shoes to fill.

We sat down with Heather to learn more about that transition and the person behind it.

Very quickly, we saw how much she has stayed true to herself. She’s a creature of routine, eating the same things for breakfast and lunch every day. But when the workday is over, she might be heading to a heavy metal concert.

It’s a fitting contradiction for someone who loves routine, but embraces change in her leadership of The Fogarty Center. It’s part of what makes her so well-suited for this work.

“This is me. This is where I want to be. This is my calling.”
Heather Alge

It started in a classroom

A younger woman with long straight brown hair stands outdoors in front of dense green foliage, wearing a black long-sleeve top and giving a slight, closed smile.

Heather’s path into disability services started during her senior year of high school, when she took a sign language course and worked as a mentor in a special education classroom.

She enjoyed both experiences. After graduating, started working as a DSP at The Olean Center in 2001. Many of the people she supported had spent decades living in institutions before moving into the community.

Working directly with people with disabilities, Heather helped people build their skills and experience things they had not had the opportunity to do before. “It was such an eye-opening experience,” she said.

Heather quickly discovered that she also enjoyed leadership. She became a manager at 19 and spent the next several years building her experience.

Looking back, Heather credits the people who saw potential in her along the way. “There were so many people who took a chance on me,” she said.

Finding her path at Fogarty

In 2008, Heather got a call from The Fogarty Center. It was looking for someone to work with a young woman with a disability in Heather’s hometown. Heather needed a full-time position, so the organization created a hybrid role where she worked as a respite coordinator and home-based worker.

From there, her career continued to grow. She finished her bachelor’s degree in business administration, joined the finance department and worked her way from data entry to finance director.

Over the years, Heather worked in many different parts of Fogarty, including direct support, children’s services and operations. That experience also gave her a front-row view of how much the field has changed during her time.

“The industry itself is so different now,” Heather said. “I try not to weigh too much on my own experience because I realize that what people are going through today is much different.”

In 2021, Fogarty created the COO position as part of its succession planning for David Reiss. Heather applied and got the job, and in 2025, she became CEO.

Three women sit together under the canopy of a boat, all wearing blue life jackets with yellow straps over their jackets. The woman on the left wears sunglasses, the woman in the middle wears a red jacket and smiles broadly, and the woman on the right wears glasses with tinted lenses, with a cloudy sky and shoreline visible behind them.

Finding her own way

Becoming CEO meant stepping into a role David Reiss, an icon in Rhode Island’s disability community, held for 34 years. Heather had spent three years working alongside him through Fogarty’s succession plan, learning from his approach to leadership.

The transition was a big one, but Heather also knew she was stepping into an organization with a strong foundation.

“He handed me a very healthy agency,” Heather said. “I feel like it’s up to me now to be like, well, ‘What are you going to do with it?’”

During their time working together, David encouraged Heather to find her own approach.

“David was so adamant that his experience is not going to be my experience and the way that he managed is not going to be the way that I manage,” she said.”
Heather Alge on David Reiss

Even while Heather was shadowing him, David gave her room to make her own choices. “He would listen to me and say, ‘You can make that decision,’” Heather said. “And he would sometimes say outright, ‘That’s not how I would do it.’ But he never held me back from it.”

That experience shaped how Heather leads today.

A leader who likes to listen

A woman with long wavy brown hair smiles broadly at the camera, wearing a royal blue button-down shirt and a delicate silver necklace, photographed against a dark charcoal studio backdrop.

Heather describes her leadership style with one word: autonomy.

“I don’t hover over my employees,” she said. “They have all of my faith and all of my trust until they don’t.”

She relies on her team’s perspectives when making decisions and says, “There is no point of holding on to employees, if you’re not going to listen to them.”

And as CEO, she knows she cannot see everything happening across Fogarty.

“I’m not in the houses. I’m not doing the job coaching,” she said. “I need staff to tell me what I don’t know.”

Just ask

For anyone thinking about entering disability services, Heather’s advice is simple.

“Do not hesitate to ask questions,” she said. “We do this every single day. The outside world doesn’t understand what we do. So, just ask questions.”

She also encourages people who want to grow in their careers to speak up and talk with their supervisors about their goals.

Heather knows firsthand how much those conversations can matter. Throughout her career, people recognized her potential and gave her chances to grow. Now, she wants to do the same for others.

“If you see an opportunity, take it,” she said.

What comes next

After more than 20 years in disability services, Heather says it is hard to imagine her life any other way.

“This is all I know,” she said. “This is everything.”

As CEO, she continues to keep one question in mind when making decisions: How will this impact the person being supported?

“If you always put that person first, everything else doesn’t matter,” she said.

Now she has the opportunity to help shape what comes next and she is doing it in her own way. The 18-year-old who wanted a paycheck and health insurance had no idea she’d end up here; leading the place that shaped her…and doing it Heather’s way.

Lightning Round

One word to describe Fogarty: Resourceful
Coffee or tea? Coffee
Zoom or in-person meeting? In person
Morning person or night owl? Morning person
Favorite part of your job? Helping people find solutions
Beach or mountains? Beach all day!
Toughest part of your job? End-of-life care
Happy place in Rhode Island? Grills Preserve in Westerly
Dogs or cats? Dogs…don’t tell my cat I said that!
Go-to comfort food? Cookies

One question to the next member

As part of our member interview series, Heather was asked a question from our previous interview with Marissa Ruff: What is the lesson that has stayed with you the most in your career?

For Heather, the answer came down to one idea:

“There is always another perspective that can change your mind,” she said. “And that’s okay.”

It’s a lesson that has shaped Heather’s career and continues to guide her as she leads Fogarty today.

Thank you, Heather, for sharing your story with us! 💚