Caron CEO Tieman to Retire in 2021

In 25 years, Caron Treatment Centers CEO Doug Tieman has overseen substantial growth and consistent innovation. Over the next 10 months, he’ll have a new focus: Transition.

Caron announced this week that Tieman will step down as the organization’s CEO in June 2021. The company is working with an outside firm to conduct a national search for his replacement.

Always a planner, Tieman says he began discussing a succession plan and his eventual departure with Caron’s board five years ago. Tieman and the organization originally targeted a retirement date of July 2020, but the launch of a new strategic plan in 2019 prompted the board to ask Tieman to stay on for an extra year, he says.

“When COVID-19 came along, candidly, we did discuss the idea of whether we should kick it back another year, but when I saw how well Caron had responded to COVID-19—all hands on deck, the board, the leadership team, all of our employees—I said, you know what, you guys have got this,” Tieman says. “Let’s stay with the original plan. We’re good.”

Under Tieman’s leadership, Caron has developed individual and family treatment programming for a diverse range of demographics and specialties, constructed a medical center, conducted research projects funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, expanded its medical team to administer medication-assisted treatment, and developed education, prevention and early intervention programs.

“I’m really proud of the growth Caron has had,” Tieman says. “We’ve grown tenfold since I came. We’ve added to our medical sophistication in a profound way. When I came in, we had a part-time medical director. Now, we have 12 physicians in Pennsylvania and two more in Florida. We have over a dozen PhD psychologists. Our ability to use medicine and evidence-based practices, while at the same time never losing our core values of being an abstinence-based, 12-Step-driven, spiritual-focused recovery program…to be able to marry that has been very special. The size we have has helped us do a lot of what I call ‘raising the bar’ type efforts.

“At the same time, we’ve never lost our heart. That’s one of the things our alumni continue to talk about. Even though Caron has gotten much bigger and more sophisticated with more programs, when they return to Wernersville, Pennsylvania, they still refer to it ‘Magic Mountain.’ The culture has never been compromised.”

Beyond continuing to navigate the challenges presented by COVID, Tieman says his work over his final 10 months as CEO will focus on three areas: working on Caron’s strategic plan to expand access, raising funds for Caron’s Keele Center, a $60 million, 95,000-square-foot medical center in Florida, and raising money for the organization’s research center in Pennsylvania.

Following his retirement next summer, Tieman will be involved with a transitional period working with Caron’s new chief executive for one year. In the meantime, Tieman says he plans to take some time to sketch out his life in retirement.

“One of the things I agreed to in my first year of recovery in 2008 was that in my mid-60s, I would retire so that I could spend more time with my wife, Fran, my kids and my grandkids, and travel,” he says. “I never really took any meaningful vacation in my 25 years with Caron because I felt like I needed to be present. Even when I took vacations, I was still in meetings. I’m looking forward to unencumbered trips and travel, and things like that that I’ve not had an opportunity to do.”

Tieman adds that he’ll also remain involved with the addiction treatment field, likely in the not-for-profit realm and possibly in a volunteer capacity.