New Greenwich Hospital president has seen health care from the operating room and the boardroom

Greenwich Time – Friday, May 30, 2025
By Robert Marchant

GREENWICH —Robert Blenderman, the new president of Greenwich Hospital, developed a fascination with medicine and healthcare as a young man.

As a high school student growing up in Queens, N.Y., he volunteered at the old Booth Memorial Hospital in his neighborhood, now New York-Presbyterian Queens.

“I got a chance to meet a physician’s assistant,” said Blenderman, 45, adding that he got an insider’s view of the hospital’s functioning. “It was enlightening. I loved the chaos of it. I loved the complexity of it, and I was hooked.”

Blenderman took over as Greenwich Hospital’s in March, replacing the former president, Diane Kelly, who announced her retirement last year.

The new president served as CEO of New York-Presbyterian Queens and later CEO of New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist. Most recently, Blenderman has served as the senior vice president at White Plains (N.Y.) Hospital, where he was in charge of a major expansion and the construction of a new pavilion.

His path to his current position as been a long one, encompassing both the clinical and administrative sides of health care.

Blenderman was the first member of his family to attend college, at St. John’s University in Queens. His grandmother had a number of health problems, and he often accompanied her on medical appointments.

“I remember, like it was yesterday, going to doctor’s appointments with my grandmother as a family,” Blenderman said.

He said this inspired him with a deep respect for physicians and other healthcare practitioners. Blenderman eventually became a physician’s assistant, working in trauma care and in heart surgery.

“I got into it and fell in love with it and would do it all over again,” he said.

Blenderman was persuaded to get into hospital administration after years of working as a physician’s assistant.

“I was reluctant to get into administration, because I loved the clinical world,” he said, but after earning an MBA in finance, he discovered a new fascination with health care.

“I loved what was behind the curtain of health care,” Blenderman said, “You think you know everything there is to know about health care when you’re at the bedside, and in the OR (operating room). Then you realize there’s this whole other world, that makes health care turn, the finance part, the planning part, the legislative part.”

Derek Anderson, president of Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y. said he worked with Blenderman for a number of years. The two are also longtime friends, and Anderson praised Blenderman’s depth of knowledge about health care.

“Bobby has been a friend and colleague for 15 years,” Anderson said. “As a trained physician assistant, he truly understands health care at its core, and brings the compassion and leadership experience, which represents a unique combination.”

The incoming president demonstrated “leadership skills, strategic vision and experience” that made him a good fit for the position at Greenwich Hospital, according to the chairman of the Greenwich Hospital Board of Trustees, W. Robert Berkley Jr.

Blenderman said he seeks to create new cancer facilities at Greenwich Hospital with an expansion of the Smilow Cancer Center.

Proposals for a separate facility near the main hospital building in 2021 and 2022 were both turned down by the Planning & Zoning Commission, over concerns about negative impacts on the nearby neighborhood. The hospital administration is now seeking approvals to build upgraded cancer care facilities within the main Watson Pavilion.

Blenderman said he believed the “tremendous” amount of work to build out cancer care facilities within the main hospital building would allay neighborhood concerns.

“The amount of work that’s gone into the understanding of everything around this cancer center, it’s enormous,” he said, “We never forget we’re embedded in a community, embedded in a neighborhood.”

Blenderman said the upgrades in technology and staffing were crucial for cancer patients in Greenwich and the surrounding communities.

“There (is) an enormous amount of subspecialists and specialists involved in care, all these specialties around the patient,” he said, adding that advances in cancer treatments have improved dramatically over the past decade.

Working to develop the new cancer care facility, and improvements to the neuroscience department, were priorities.

“And we never forget about the emergency room. I say it to the team all the time, it’s the heart and soul of our hospital,” Blenderman said.

When he’s off duty, Blenderman is a huge N.Y. Yankees fan, attending games as often as possible, and two teenaged kids also keep him busy with sports and music events. He lives on the north shore of Long Island in Nassau County, N.Y.

Though he wears a suit a tie and not hospital scrubs to work, Blenderman still values his background as a “clinical person,” he said.

“It’s been part of the DNA of how I’ve functioned, never forgetting why we’re here, it’s true we’re all here for patients,” Blenderman said.

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