Sound Behavioral Health’s Enduring Compassionate Care

In our sister publication 425 Business’ annual legacy business issue, it looks at local enterprises that have stood the test of time. Like a tree whose roots burrow into the soil to improve its foothold, these enduring enterprises have remained stoic.

Graduate student Katrina Egner started an internship at Sound Behavioral Health in 1997, working with families at imminent risk of losing custody of their kids. The then-23-year-old’s early days at Sound ended up starting an upward trajectory with the organization: In 2023, Egner was tapped to serve as its president and CEO.

Long-term commitment like Egner’s isn’t uncommon for the organization: She noted that there are some employees who have been with Sound for upward of 45 years.

“The people who come to work for us, and come to this field, care so deeply, and they want to be able to do everything they can,” she said.

Compassion was at the core of Sound Behavioral Health’s founding 60 years ago, too. Precipitated by the 1963 passage of the Community Mental Health Act, which greenlit federal funding for community mental health centers nationwide, the organization was started in 1966 as the Colonial American Foundation by then-Washington Gov. Booth Gardner and Northwest entrepreneur Artie Buerk.

Across several Seattle-area clinics and propped up by around 600 staff members, the several-times-rebranded Sound today has five regularly intersecting service areas: adult mental health and substance-use disorder treatment; child, youth, and family services; crisis and transitional services; residential services and supportive living; and intellectual and development disabilities support.

“From a client perspective, the courage it takes to overcome the stigma — to say, I’ve got a problem — and then the clinicians that help day in and day out, that’s hard work,” said Chief Impact and Community Engagement Officer E.M. “Eddie” Pasatiempo, adding, “To show up with a smile on their face, and the hope that they can continue to do more — I almost get emotional about this.”

Sound has often been at the forefront of behavioral health care innovation. It helped develop the first integrated crisis system for enrolled behavioral health clients in the region; it also had one of the U.S.’s first dedicated intellectual and developmental disabilities programs. Its program for those who are deaf and hard of hearing is the only one of its kind in Washington; it was influential in bringing to the mainstream the idea that those who are reentering society after being incarcerated need more dedicated help, too.

That’s only a sampling of Sound’s accomplishments. It’s also been a boon for Sound to join the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics model, which enables client reimbursement for total care costs “in a way that allows us to do things for people that they need, because typical medical payment systems don’t address a lot of needs that our clients have,” Egner said.

Despite the multilayered challenges inextricable from behavioral health care, Sound being around for 60 years is a major point of pride for the organization. It’s celebrating with a gala and a campaign recognizing key community members, businesses, and clients; it’s also introduced an effort called Reimagining Philanthropy, which entails that Sound goes to corporations and donors and gauges what the organization can do to advance their prospective benefactor’s own needs.

“By the combination of that partnership, the community benefits,” Pasatiempo said, “because the community gets the benefits of the services, we’re able to provide because of the partnerships we form with donors.”