How Granite Recovery Centers Responded to Pence’s Canceled Trip, Employee’s Confession

Everything was business as usual at Granite Recovery Centers last Monday morning when CEO Eric Spofford went into a meeting with the organization’s director of human relations to discuss employee benefits. Little did Spofford know when he left the meeting at 11 a.m. that he was about to receive a confession from his chief business development officer that would make national headlines in less than an hour.

In early July, Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to deliver an address at one of Granite’s New Hampshire facilities on the opioid epidemic and the flow of illegal drugs in the state. At the last minute, the trip was canceled with no immediate explanation given. Even Spofford was kept in the dark.

“The cancelation of the vice president event was as much a mystery for myself and everyone here at Granite Recovery Centers as it was for the rest of the world,” Spofford tells Behavioral Healthcare Executive. “The comment they made about ‘you will know in a couple weeks’ was a puzzle that I couldn’t stop thinking about because how often does an addiction treatment facility operator have commentary from the president and vice president, right? I knew nothing.”

That changed last Monday, when Spofford says he was approached by Jeff Hatch, a former NFL player who had been serving as Granite’s chief business development officer.

“[Hatch] informed me that he had relapsed a long time ago,” Spofford says. “He had pain management issues. Unbeknownst to me, on and off, he had taken opiates since he had a total knee replacement in 2014. He messed up around the surgery and never got right with the recovery around it, which turned into a relapse for him, which turned into him doing some incredibly dumb things.”

Specifically, Hatch was charged with participating in drug trafficking activities that included arranging for the pickup of 1,500 grams of fentanyl. In exchange, Spofford says, Hatch was provided with small amounts of drugs, which he had begun taking during his relapse. Spofford says Hatch got into trouble with law enforcement almost two years ago and has been sober again since. Hatch’s involvement with authorities, which had been kept secret from his family, friends and his employer for the ensuing two years, recently concluded, and last Thursday, he entered a guilty plea and accepted a sentence of up to four years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

Spofford says he was “absolutely shocked and, quite frankly, mortified” when Hatch informed him of what was happening.

“Some people have asked how I didn’t know,” Spofford says. “Well, I didn’t know. I would ask people to turn that around and ask themselves how it makes any sense at all that I would have known. It doesn’t.”

Hatch’s employment with Granite was terminated immediately, and Spofford says his next move was to inform his entire organization before the news became public an hour later.

As of noon on Friday, Spofford estimates he has talked with about 400 industry colleagues across the country, whose support he has been grateful for, as well as referral sources, and family members of current and past clients.

Kelly Farrell, CEO and founder of designRoom, who specializes in brand identity for behavioral health companies, says that based on what she has read to date, she credits Spofford for responding appropriately and taking swift action in a tough situation.

“He did a good job,” she tells BHE.

Farrell adds that she doesn’t expect the episode to be a blemish on the industry as a whole.

“No, I don’t think a high-profile incident like this stains the entire industry because there are way too many amazing people and great organizations doing incredible work to help people overcome substance use disorders,” she says.

The incident does, however, serve as a reminder that it’s critical for behavioral healthcare and addiction treatment companies to have a strong mission statement and organizational values—and to be ready to “apologize, take responsibility quickly, compassionately and directly with as much transparency as possible as to how you are going to fix the problem” when a crisis hits, Farrell says.

Spofford acknowledges that Granite “didn’t have a playbook stashed in a drawer somewhere that we blew the dust off of when this happened.” He says that after informing employees, he wrote a public statement himself, then worked with the company’s public relations professionals to distribute it.

“Everything has been my own language,” Spofford says. “Everything has been honest, genuine and authentic. My position on this has been that I’m going to take it head-on.”

Spofford laments the actions of Hatch, with whom he had shared a home group in recovery for years, but holds out hope for his now former colleague.

“Ultimately, I hate what Jeff did,” Spofford says. “Fentanyl…I’m born and raised in New Hampshire, and New Hampshire has been at the top of the overdose death counts consistently since fentanyl showed up. Fentanyl has taken the lives of literally hundreds of people I’ve known, loved and cared about. I cannot stand or stomach Jeff’s actions. They’re reprehensible to me.

“At the same time, this is the business of redemption. Jeff is no different than me and a lot of other people in the sense that he has an addiction and is in recovery. People relapse in this industry all the time. … I’m angry, but at the same time…this is the story of a well-known addiction executive who had a relapse and made some really dumb decisions and did some really terrible things. It doesn’t get him off the hook, but that’s the true story.”