President and Chief Executive Officer
Chris Wiant has served as President and CEO of the Caring for Colorado Foundation since October 2000. Prior to joining the Foundation, he was the Executive Director of the Tri-County Health Department, serving more than one million residents in Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties in Colorado. Wiant has more than 30 years of experience in public health, working on issues of national, state, and local health and environmental policy. He has acted as a facilitator to promote effective dialogue among communities and federal, state and local government agencies on community health issues.
Wiant holds a Ph.D. in public administration from the University of Colorado at Denver, Graduate School of Public Affairs. His master of public health is from the University of Illinois at the Medical Center, School of Public Health. Wiant also holds a master’s of arts degree in health services administration from the University of Illinois-Springfield and a bachelor of science in chemistry from Illinois State University.
Wiant has been appointed to a variety of local, regional and national health and environmental advisory boards and serves as a subject matter expert to both industry and government on issues of the environment, water quality and hazardous waste. He has training in a variety of public health emergency programs, and is currently an adjunct instructor in bioterrorism for the National Emergency Response and Rescue Training Center at Texas A & M University.
Wiant has been honored with numerous awards for his work in environmental health including the Walter Mangold Award from the National Environmental Health Association in 2007.