The Park City Center for Public Policy

Charles Curie

Charles Curie is the principal and founder of The Curie Group, LLC, a management and consulting firm specializing in working with leaders of the healthcare field, particularly the mental health (MH) and substance use (SU) arenas, to facilitate the transformation of services and to attain increasingly positive outcomes in the lives of people worldwide. Curie has over 25 years of professional experience in the mental health and substance use services fields. His core commitment is to ensure that people with addictive and mental disorders have the opportunity for full participation in American society and this has earned him national recognition and acclaim.

In 2001, Curie was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to head the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). As SAMHSA Administrator, Curie led the $3.4 billion agency responsible for improving the accountability, capacity and effectiveness of the Nation’s substance abuse prevention, addictions treatment and mental health services.

Accomplishments during his tenure from 2001 to 2006 as SAMHSA Administrator include, helping establish and manage The President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, implementing a Strategic Prevention Framework for substance use prevention, developing and implementing Access to Recovery which gave clients choices for substance use treatment, defining domains for National Outcome Measures for mental health and substance use services and working internationally with post-conflict and war-torn countries in establishing their MH and SU service systems, including Iraq and Afghanistan.