Marjorie Ginsburg, MPH
Executive Director

Not one to be pinned down too early, Marge attended six colleges in 18 years. As an RN, she drifted from a hospital ED to the United Farm Workers, Peace Corps in Nepal, a free clinic in Philly, home care nurse in Baltimore and San Francisco. Deciding she wanted to run things, Marge earned an MPH at UC Berkeley. She started an adult day health center, then was program administrator at the S.F. Institute on Aging. The 1989 earthquake convinced her husband to move to Sacramento, so she tagged along. There she discovered the health decisions movement (perhaps less a movement than a philosophy). After a brief stint with California Health Decisions, she founded Sacramento Healthcare Decisions in 1994.  In 2009, CHCD changed its name to the Center for Healthcare Decisions.

Marge currently serves on NCQA’s Committee on Performance Measurement, Integrated Healthcare Association board, California Technology Assessment Forum panel, California Hospital Assessment & Reporting Task Force (CHART) board, California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting Initiative executive committee, and the California Hospital Patient Safety Organization board. Previously, she was the co-chair for California Coalition for Compassionate Care and served on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation National Advisory Committee for its initiative Community-State Partnerships to Improve End-of-Life Care. Marge also has chaired the Sacramento County Commission on Geographic Managed Care, and the Sacramento County Public Health Advisory Board.

Besides her risk-adverse husband, she has two beloved, very spoiled dogs.

Kathy Glasmire, BA
Associate Director

A child of the 60s who grew up in a small Ohio town, Kathy was impatient to get on with her life. She left college at age 19, married at 20 and moved to California at 22. Newly arrived in Sacramento, she stumbled upon a position with the Community Services Planning Council, and a career with non-profit community-based organizations was born. She spent the next 20 years honing her skills in community outreach, planning and organization. One of her most intriguing positions was with Sacramento′s first health decisions project sponsored by the Planning Council in the late 80s. Issues of death and dying, the appropriate use of medical technology and cost containment were hot topics. The more things change …!

Deciding in her 40s to return to school, Kathy completed her B.A. in Humanities and Religious Studies from Sacramento State University. Delving into The Odyssey, Zen Buddhism and the Impressionists was a highlight of this time in her life. Kathy and her husband Larry recently celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary. Their daughter Laurel is a teacher in Portland, Oregon.

Kathy joined CHCD in 1997 and implements CHCD’s multi-program initiative to improve end-of-life care. For 7 years she led the public engagement initiative of the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California and currently serves on its board of directors (chair 2007-08), Kathy also is co-chair for the Compassionate Care Alliance of the Greater Sacramento Region.