Adam Linker Joins Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust as Program Officer

Portrait of Director of Programs Adam Linker

The Trust is pleased to announce Adam Linker will join the Trust this month as the new Health Care Division program officer.

Linker, currently the co-director of the North Carolina Justice Center’s Health Care Access Coalition, will serve as the primary contact for grantees and potential grantees in the Eastern North Carolina region for the Trust’s Health Care Division. Trust Program Officer Jason Baisden, who currently represents the Eastern part of the state, will begin covering Western North Carolina for the Health Care Division. Baisden—an Appalachian State University graduate and former president of the North Carolina Association of Free Clinics—will oversee the Trust’s cornerstone efforts in the West including Healthy Places NC, a long-term initiative to improve rural health, in Burke and McDowell counties.

In his role as program officer, Linker will maintain relationships with various groups—including nonprofits, hospitals, government agencies and local schools—that are key to improving community health. He will convene community and nonprofit leaders around specific issues, work to ensure grantees’ work is in line with the Trust’s long-term strategic goals, and spearhead Healthy Places NC in Beaufort County.

“Adam brings a wealth of experience from his time at the North Carolina Justice Center and a deep background in the Eastern North Carolina region after residing in Greenville for a decade,” said Allen Smart, Trust interim president and vice president of programs. “His commitment to improving health care access, his ability to navigate the health policy arena, and his experience building relationships in rural communities make him an asset to the team.”

At the North Carolina Justice Center—a statewide nonprofit committed to economic, social and political justice—Linker helps set the organization’s statewide health policy agenda, builds and maintains coalitions, and provides legislative updates to community groups and partner organizations. Before leading the Justice Center’s Health Access Coalition, Linker served as the group’s health policy analyst. Prior to joining the Justice Center in 2008, he was a health care and education reporter for the Triangle Business Journal. He serves as a board member for numerous organizations including the NC AIDS Action Network, Friends of Greenville Greenways and NC Get Covered.

Because of his family’s background, Linker has a personal commitment and connection to the health and well-being of the state’s agricultural communities and heritage. He holds a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s degree in African American history from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He grew up in Raleigh and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an undergraduate. Linker and his wife recently moved from Greenville to Greensboro with their two young children.