OPRA Lifetime Leadership Award

A huge congratulations to Diane Beastrom, Vice President of Transition at Boundless, for receiving the 2024 OPRA Lifetime Leadership Award. This award is presented to a professional who has exhibited extraordinary leadership, advocacy and passion as a provider of adult services in Ohio. Only one person receives this award for the entire state of Ohio.

Diane Beastrom has faithfully and fearlessly served the I/DD community for more than four decades.

Beginning as a program developer/program director, Diane eventually rose through the ranks of service and became President and CEO of Koinonia in 1990, a position she held for over 30 years. During that time, Diane led the organization to become one of the region’s leading service providers for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She oversaw the expansion of Koinonia’s services and resources, including managing mergers with two other intellectual and developmental disabilities service providers, and launching adult and school-based employment services. Diane also led the development of Koinonia’s first Intermediate Care Facilities (ICF’s), supported living programs, and day and vocational services.

Under Diane’s leadership, Koinonia grew into a $30 million enterprise with 20 licensed residential homes, over 50 supported living sites, day support, and vocational and career services. A values-driven and goals-oriented executive, Diane led Koinonia with a demonstrated commitment to people, development, innovation, and collaboration. She provided a calm and steady hand in the face of funding challenges, growth opportunities, a global pandemic and ensuing workforce shortage.

In 2018, Diane was named as one of the Notable Women in Healthcare by Crain’s Cleveland Business. Again in 2021, she was recognized as a Woman of Note by Crain’s Cleveland Business, recognizing outstanding women whose achievements, commitment, and work enrich Northeast Ohio. She is Board President of the American Network of Community Options and Resources (ANCOR) and on the Board of Directors for the Ohio Provider Resource Association (OPRA).

Diane holds a bachelor’s degree in Speech Pathology and Psychology, and a master’s degree in Speech Pathology from Cleveland State University. She also holds a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Case Western Reserve University.

Diane served as an officer on the OPRA Board of Directors and served two terms on the ANCOR Board. She also served two terms as Vice President before assuming the role of ANCOR Board Chair.

When she was chair of ANCOR’s Governance Committee, she led the group to tackle policies, procedures and bylaws. In her words, it was “never sexy work, but critical to the success of our association.” The common thread to the work was to create more opportunities for leadership, inclusive of the 100% state associations and the ANCOR Foundation and provide greater clarity in who ANCOR’s core members are: providers of services.

In recognition of her efforts to the industry, in 2024 Diane was inducted into the national ANCOR Foundation Legacy Leader Hall of Fame.

While Diane has held very public leadership roles with Koinonia, OPRA and ANCOR, she’s also spent significant time in more private leadership interactions. Coaching, counseling and mentoring come naturally to Diane and many who’ve worked with her have valued her open sharing of ideas, suggestions and best practices learned from a lifetime of experience.

In late 2023, Diane led Koinonia through the coming together with I Am Boundless. This partnership brought strength to both organizations and enabled those who worked for Koinonia to retain their employment and increase their benefits. It was important for Diane that neither staff member nor person served saw a negative change because of coming together with Boundless. To help aid the transition, in 2023 Diane stepped down from her President & CEO role and became the Vice President of Transition at I Am Boundless. She will retire from full-time work at the end of 2024 but remain available as needed for a period of time.

One of Diane’s favorite proverbs is: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” As she says, “I particularly love that saying, because it describes the power we gain together and recognizes that adherence to inclusive, deliberative and transparent process – rarely fast! – gives us the best results in the long run.”