Brittan Family Giving Brings Speech Therapy Services to Eagle County

The Brittan family has long served as pioneers for elevating health care in Vail. In the 1960s, Gordon Brittan stood on Bridge Street in Vail Village holding a cup and asking residents and visitors for donations to build the Vail Clinic.

“When my parents, Thelma and Gordon, moved to Vail in 1965, there was no clinic,” says Kent Brittan. “My dad understood that Vail very much needed a real hospital facility nearby without having to drive into Denver.”

Thanks to Kent’s parents, who devoted themselves to helping build a health care facility in Vail, along with other generous community members, Vail Clinic evolved into what is known today as Vail Health Hospital.

Decades later, Kent and his wife, Charlotte, donated $1 million to fund Vail Health Howard Head Sports Medicine’s (HHSM) speech therapy program, the first in Eagle County. The Brittans’ contribution is a blended gift, which provides immediate funding for the speech therapy program, and includes an estate gift to help sustain the program into the future.

Kent was inspired to carry on his parents’ philanthropy through the HHSM speech program due to his own experience with a speech disorder. The couple hope their donation will help people who show early signs of neurological diseases like Kent’s and other disorders receive quality treatment nearby.

“I wanted to keep the memory of my parents alive,” says Kent, “because without their ideas, initiative, and hard work—along with all of their friends—the hospital would never have been built.”

Like the Brittans, you can change lives for years to come by supporting Vail Health through your estate plan. Contact Aaron Ciszek at 970.569.7574 or aaronc@vailhealth.org or Anne Walters at 970.569.7648 or anne.walters@vailhealth.org to learn about your options.