Four Years, One Pizza Shop, Endless Impact
Four Years, One Pizza Shop, Endless Impact
Honoring Harrison Collins’ impact on home care licensure, advocacy, and grassroots leadership at the Home Care Alliance as he begins his next chapter.
Advocacy, Impact, and a Pizza Shop
After nearly four years with the Home Care Alliance, our Director of Legislative and Public Affairs, Harrison Collins will be moving on to a new role as State Director of Government Affairs with CareSource/Commonwealth Care Alliance.
Harrison has been a driving force behind some of the Alliance’s most consequential work. From leading the effort to advance licensure for non-medical home care agencies to rebuilding and energizing grassroots advocacy on Beacon Hill, his steady leadership, credibility, and deep policy expertise strengthened both our voice and our impact.
Following the Massachusetts House’s passage of An Act to Improve Home Care (H.4706), Harrison was featured in both Home Health Care News and McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse, reinforcing why licensure is long overdue.
“It’s easier to open up a home care agency than it is to open up a pizza shop. And you would feel like it would be the opposite kind of thing. That’s why we’re very excited. It’s not very often that business comes together and comes forward to say, ‘hey put more regulations on us.’ But there’s been a lot of support within our community for this and we’re very excited.”
— Harrison Collins, quoted in McKnight’s Home Care
If you’ve heard him testify, meet with legislators, or speak to the press, the pizza shop analogy will sound very familiar. He used it everywhere—and it worked—bringing clarity to complex issues, persistence to long fights, and integrity to every conversation, always centering members and the people they serve.
On a personal level, Harrison has been far more than a colleague. He’s been my walking partner for lunch breaks, my sounding board on hard days, and a constant source of humor and support. We’ll miss him terribly, but we’re incredibly proud of him, deeply grateful for everything he’s built here, and very much looking forward to continuing to work together—and watching him thrive—in his new role.
Thank you, Harrison, for the walks, the laughs, the arguments, and yes…the pizza shop.