Leading with more than 25 years of experience, Dublin resident and ADAMH CEO David Royer’s ability to see life through a lens of hope and recovery has helped him navigate the path to where he is now.
Today, Royer is leading an organization that has helped thousands fight adversity and find strength, giving marginalized populations a voice while teaching the community to embrace those affected – regardless of their disability.
ADAMH, the Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board of Franklin County, serves more than 40,000 people a year, improving the well-being of the community by providing progressive, effective mental health and addiction treatment, as well as prevention services.
Royer’s unique understanding and experience with mental illness have led him to where he is today. His childhood exposed him to what would soon become his passion in life. He took inspiration from his father, who researched schizophrenia at veterans’ hospitals. As Royer worked in his father’s lab, the challenges of persistent mental illness inspired him to help these people recover.
“He studied the psychiatric casualties of war, not just the physical casualties,” Royer says. “I came to this field because it’s something that I knew. And there’s great pain in persistent mental illness. I developed an affinity for these folks because of the challenges they face.”
Growing up in Maryland and Cleveland, Royer continued his education with the intention of battling mental issues. He began at Wright State University, studying social work, and went on to pursue a master of science degree in health services at Central Michigan University.
Though it may be well-hidden, mental illness is common. One in four people has a mental illness, and even more lives are affected by it, Royer explains. And after Royer’s friends lost battles to drugs or alcohol, he surveyed the aftermath and decided to fight back.
“Unfortunately, I was at the age where I saw my friends become casualties of drug addiction or alcoholism,” Royer says. “Unless someone can recover, there’s generally a road of tragedy and despair. But there are individuals who can recover with the right support.”
After college, Royer worked at a mental health center as a case manager. He brought people back into the community after they were institutionalized.
“I learned a lot about the humanness of people with mental illness. They only wanted what I wanted and what you wanted. They wanted to live a life no different than you and I in that context,” Royer says.
From there, Royer worked at Cleveland’s Deaconess Hospital, where he ran an inpatient program. He learned much about the business of healthcare. After that, Royer worked as a board director at the Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services Board of Butler County for almost a decade before joining ADAMH. He came to Columbus in 2000.
Royer has had several impressive accomplishments, paving the path toward recovery for many. However, he says, “the most rewarding part is getting to work with people who have the same commitment. We have a strong sense of the spirit of optimism here – the idea that we can do better and believing tomorrow can be better than today. We’re here to improve the quality of life for those who may otherwise be left behind.”
David Royer has been a leader in the Managing for Results initiative, ensuring efficiency, effectiveness and quality services for individuals, but he says his most important accomplishment is simply facilitating the direct services work, making a difference in people’s lives.
“It’s not the buildings you build or the programs you create; it’s the lives that you touch,” Royer says.
Royer’s passion is palpable when he talks about the stigma associated with mental illness in our society.
“We begin to stereotype people with mental illness,” he says. “Not only are we faced with that challenge, we tend to see people with mental illness by the nature of the illness and we don’t see them as a person. It’s important for people with mental illness to have a voice. We’ve worked hard to try to build programs that give them that voice.”
Royer paves the path to abolish that stigma. Part of ADAMH’s vision is to de-stigmatize mental illness.
“We have a saying here: ‘See the person, not the illness.’ They want the same things that you want. They want friends and family. We fight this uphill stream, so to speak, where we tend to focus more on the illness than the person. And that’s stigmatizing,” he says.
ADAMH tries to teach the community that regardless of the disability, how we treat that population matters.
“The more we embrace that they have a place in our society, and that their place is no different than ours, then I think our mission is made easier,” Royer says.
ADAMH conducts activities that reduce the stigma attached to mental illness and addiction.
“If you have chronic lung disease, we don’t view that person as different.”
But the same is not true for mental illness, Royer says.
“Most people with mental illness are doing fine on medication,” he says. “Only in the most pronounced situations is it that we notice a person with mental illness.”
Not only is Royer a leader of ADAMH, he also avidly researches golf course architecture.
“Very few people know what it is, but I read about it every day,” Royer says.
He describes his reverence, comparing golf architects to artists, seeing the world through their own lens.
“I found it interesting that they can take a piece of land and they can lift it like a blanket, and there’s a golf course laid on a piece of land that most people couldn’t envision. In the classic age of golf architecture, these are the people who walked in a different time and tied ribbons around trees and felt the ground through their feet,” he says.
Royer has three daughters – one lives in Grandview Heights and two live in Cincinnati –and eight grandchildren.
Corinne Murphy is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at hbealer@cityscenecolumbus.com.
Related Reads
Dublin resident Becky Schisler makes waves with ghost tours
Boy Scout Kevin Lake serves those with Down syndrome
Radiologist William Shiels aids children and wounded veterans
