At first glance, Steve Vincent and Jim Forsting appear to be typical Minnesotans: Vincent takes a week-long canoeing trip in the Boundary Waters each year; Forsting and his wife have logged more than 200,000 miles on their motorcycle. But the pair’s work as co-directors of behavioral health services at St. Cloud Hospital is anything but typical. Over the course of their 25-year collaboration they have cultivated  an extraordinary ability to find funding and resources for mental and chemical health treatment in the St. Cloud area.

One of the duo’s key innovations has been the 1989 creation—and current expansion—of a halfway house called Journey Home, which houses pregnant women and mothers during the women’s treatment for substance abuse.

“Before Journey Home, they were faced with a dilemma,” Forsting says. “They’d do well while they were in primary treatment for a month or so, but then they had the choice of either giving up custody of their kids and going to a halfway house, or winging it [in the outside world]. That’s what the barriers were back then. So we wrote the first grant to get such a program created. It was only the third of its kind in the whole country.”

Another major project was the creation of the Child & Adolescent Specialty Care Center at CentreCare Health Plaza. The Center is a multidisciplinary outpatient clinic that brings together pediatrics, psychiatry and psychology, rehabilitation, physical and speech therapy, and even such specialty services as chemotherapy and infusion. The unifying theme is its focus on young people.

Vincent and Forsting have also directed grant money toward health initiatives in the local schools. Under Vincent, the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Mobile Wellness Center has begun to offer comprehensive mental health assessments for children and adolescents. Meanwhile, Forsting has led the hospital’s Recovery Plus Addiction Services in providing 12 chemical health prevention counselors to more than 25 schools in central Minnesota.

At the other end of the age spectrum was the creation of the nation’s first addiction recovery program geared toward older adults. Because so many seniors depend on Medicare, the program had to be hospital-based,  and it had to provide outpatient counseling and support. Through an alliance with the United Way’s Senior Helping Hands program, volunteers provide such services as home visits and transportation to support-group meetings.

“We’ve been pioneers in this whole addiction field for many, many years,” Forsting says. “The spirit of the staff seems to [support] coming up with new ways of looking at things, and I love the administrative part of it—just making things happen. I’m one of those recovering hippies who likes to challenge the system and the bureaucracy. If somebody says ‘no,’ I find a way to make it a ‘yes’”.

Part of the success, says Forsting, is in the synergy of his partnership with Vincent, allowing each to do more together than either could have accomplished on his own.

For his part, Steve directs his work according to three major goals: Enjoy life, make a difference, and leave a legacy.

“One of the really good things about this job is that it gives me an opportunity to work in an area where I feel like I can make a difference,” he says. “I just hope that that difference is significant enough, both in its breath and in its depth.”