Our Staff
Leadership
President and CEO
As President & CEO for Responsibility.org, Chris Swonger brings his knowledge leading the industry in corporate social responsibility strategies. With over 25 years of experience in the public and private sector, representing elected officials and three diverse, global consumer goods companies, Chris has led integrated corporate affairs strategies with responsibility for public affairs, international government affairs, corporate reputation management, corporate communications, brand public relations, philanthropy, and social responsibility.
Currently, Chris serves as the President & CEO of both the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility (Responsibility.org) and the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. Responsibility.org was founded in 1991 and has received more than $250 million dollars voluntarily from the nation’s leading distillers to fight drunk driving and underage drinking and promote responsible decisions about beverage alcohol. The Council is the leading voice for distilled spirits in the U.S. market and serves as the industry’s advocate in state capitals, the nation’s capital and foreign capitals around the globe.
Chris has extensive experience guiding corporations to lead in business while playing a positive role in communities through proactive engagement. In this capacity, Chris focuses on breaking down the traditional barriers that exist between corporations, non-government organizations and activist groups by facilitating consensus based outcomes which are deliverable, actionable and measurable.
A native Texan, Chris received his Bachelor’s Degree from Texas Tech University and lives in McLean, Virginia with his wife Amy and their two sons Holden and Beckett Boone.
Executive Director
Benjamin R. Nordstrom, M.D., Ph.D. is the Executive Director of Responsibility.org and a Board Certified Addiction Psychiatrist. He is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of Phoenix House, a leading nonprofit, drug and alcohol addiction treatment provider. Dr. Nordstrom has also worked as a faculty member at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He has taught psychiatry, addiction psychiatry, and criminology at the undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate levels.
Dr. Nordstrom has served on steering committees for drug courts and mental health courts and is the past President of the Board of Directors for the New Hampshire Professionals Health Program. He has previously served on the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s expert consensus treatment on the treatment of opioid use disorders and has worked with the State of Vermont with their innovative Hub and Spoke initiative. Dr. Nordstrom is a member of the United States Army Reserve and has served in the Middle East as a psychiatrist for our nation’s military personnel.
Dr. Nordstrom holds an M.D. from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Criminology from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his training in psychiatry and addiction psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He and his wife Sarah have two teenaged daughters.
