Charlie Alfero
THRIVE RURAL THEORY OF CHANGE (TOC) WORKING GROUP, ASPEN CSG
Mr. Alfero is the Executive Advisor to the Center for Health Innovation (CHI), a 501 c-3 nonprofit organization, which is also New Mexico’s Public Health Institute. Mr. Alfero founded CHI and served as its Executive Director for five years. Prior to his time at CHI, he was the founder of HMS, a Community Health Center providing primary medical, dental, mental health, family support, community development and health policy services in southwestern New Mexico.
He has 42 years of experience in rural health policy, systems and program development. He is considered a leading expert in rural health systems, having appeared on several Congressional panels on the topic. Alfero has served as Director of Rural Outreach for the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center and Director of the Community Health Services Division in the NM Department of Health. He also served as the Director of the National Center for Frontier Communities and New Mexico Primary Care Training Consortium where he currently serves as Executive Advisor and Designated Institutional Official for the ACGME-accredited Sponsoring Institution at the Consortium.
Alfero has overseen or directed multiple programs in New Mexico including NM Health Resources, the State and National Health Service Corps programs and FORWARD NM, a health careers pipeline program serving underserved populations. He is also an Advisory Board member of the University of Iowa Rural Policy and Research Institute and the University of Southern Maine Rural Research Center.
He has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, History and Sociology and a Master’s degree in Counselling Psychology from Western New Mexico University. Alfero has lived in New Mexico since 1971 and has spent most of those years developing hands-on experiences in frontier health care in order to better inform the impact of public policies, programs and financing on fragile populations.