Initiative Co-Chairs

Steven M. Altschuler, MD has been President & Chief Executive Officer of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the nation’s oldest hospital dedicated to the care of sick children, since 2000. Since 1997, he had been Physician-in-Chief and the first holder of the Leonard and Madlyn Abramson Endowed Chair in Pediatric Medicine. A world leader in patient care, education and research, Children’s Hospital is a pediatric healthcare network with eight outpatient specialty centers, 28 primary care practices, affiliations with nine community hospitals, a poison control center, and a home care service. Children’s Hospital is second among all hospitals in total research funding from the National Institutes of Health.

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Jane G. Pepper
President, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society

Jane G. Pepper took over the reins of the 182-year-old Pennsylvania Horticultural Society in 1981. Pepper oversees the Society’s activities and programs, including the renowned Philadelphia International Flower Show and Philadelphia Green. The Flower Show plays host each year to more than 250,000 visitors, and the Society has nearly 16,000 active members. In addition, Philadelphia Green coordinates greening projects with organized community groups on blocks in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and revitalizes downtown areas and gateway open spaces in partnership with public and private organizations. More than five million square feet of vacant urban land have been reclaimed and revived to date making Philadelphia Green the nation’s largest such program.

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Wendell E. Pritchett, PhD
Chancellor, Rutgers University at Camden

As Chancellor of the Camden Campus of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Pritchett oversees 1000 employees, 5600 students, and an annual budget of more than $50 million. Previously, Pritchett served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Law. In 2007, Pritchett chaired the Urban Policy Task Force for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Over the past 15 years, Pritchett has held leadership positions in many nonprofits including chair of Community Legal Services of Philadelphia from 2005 to 2008, during which time the organization’s budget grew from $6 million to more than $10 million. He is the author of two books, Brownsville, Brooklyn: Blacks, Jews, and the Changing Face of the Ghetto (University of Chicago Press, 2002), and Robert Clifton Weaver and the American City: The Life and Times of an Urban Reformer (University of Chicago Press, 2008).