Who We Are
We are a group of private-sector leaders coming from local companies, nonprofits, higher education, and philanthropy working to ensure educational success for Greater Hartford students from high school through post-secondary degree-completion.
Our Mission
To close the opportunity gap in Greater Hartford and build a viable talent pipeline for our region and state.
Our Vision
We envision Hartford as the state’s leading talent hub, with our city’s young people well placed in careers and the cycle of poverty ended.
What We Do
We work with public-private sector partners to identify gaps in services and provide support where it’s needed.
Chris Marcelli
Executive Director
Chris Marcelli, the executive director, joined Achieve Hartford in 2016, taking on increasing levels of responsibility and leadership. Marcelli has served as Achieve Hartford’s program director since June 2020, and before that, as program manager. In those roles, he helped create, launch and oversee the expansion of programs that provide peer mentors to help first-generation students start and persist in community college.
Marcelli earned a Master of Public Administration from UConn and a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Economics from Central Connecticut State University. A first-gen student, he began his higher education at a community college while serving in the Connecticut National Guard.
He has worked in Institutional Effectiveness, where he built and implemented a new system for the assessment of co-curricular programs, conducted financial projections and peer institution analysis, and administered a $10,000 mini-grant fund. He worked in Performance Management at the Department of Children and Families.


Theresa Sullivan Barger
Grant Writer / Communications Manager
Theresa is an award-winning journalist whose stories have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Hartford Courant, Family Circle, and several national business, health and higher education magazines.
In her early years as a Courant staff writer, she covered crime in Hartford and got to know the city’s neighborhoods. She has worked as a freelance writer and editor since 2007. She has provided writing services as a consultant to Achieve Hartford! since its beginning.
Theresa has a B.A. in English literature from Marist College.
Who Backs Us

Board Chair
- Ted Fleming
- VP Talent Development
- CVS Health

Board Treasurer
- Jim Bedard
- CFO
- UnitedHealthcare Northeast Region

- Niasia Williams
- Mechanical Systems Engineer
- Pratt & Whitney

- Melissa Melonson
- Co-Founder and President
- Lumi Luxe Agency

- Eric Stone
- Founder, CEO
- Clear Path Ventures

- Thom Cranley
- Principal
- Ernst & Young

- Ellen Last
- Co-Founder
- Sprint 52

- Stefanie Chambers
- Professor of Political Science
- Department Chair
- Trinity College

- Courtney Kunzelmann
- Secretary, VP Head, Retirement Strategic Marketing
- Prudential