For a 21-year-old Long Islander fresh out of the State University of New York at Albany, one could assume there would be a culture shock entering postgraduate education nearly 500 miles down the road in Richmond, Va.

Yet, Peter Zucker, Ph.D., (M.S. ’80, Ph.D. ’83) quickly found community and his professional purpose in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Psychology.

Zucker built the foundation for his career in strategic and clinical program implementation, talent development, professional staff development and training along with a keen focus on people and the humanity of all clients served through mentors like then department chair and professor emeritus Everett L. Worthington Jr., Ph.D.; an assistantship in the VCU midlife career development agency and a practicum in organization development at Philip Morris; and even a server position at the Tobacco Company restaurant where he would offer to create a professional development program for the owners.

The impact VCU had on Zucker persists throughout his life, and he works to give back to the university that means so much to him.

Assisting the next generation

Personalized in more than just its namesake, the Dr. Peter Zucker Scholarship was created to provide one scholarship per year to one Department of Psychology graduate student to prepare for a career in areas like behavioral healthcare management, healthcare management, executive consulting and leadership, or similar fields of study and practice, combining graduate study in psychology along with any electives in business, consulting, management, finance or leadership.

“You know, when I went to Albany, it was pretty impersonal,” Zucker said. “There were one or two professors that I had coffee with. [Then] I come to VCU, the professors invite me to their homes, even to a therapy group in their kitchen. I had coffee with Everett [Worthington Jr.] every two weeks. I want to pay that back and be a mentor to my scholarship recipients for almost anything professional or that I could help them with; sometimes just to listen. So in a way, I’m now that guy helping them because so many people at VCU helped me.”

While Zucker doesn’t expect that a recipient will take the exact path he walked at VCU, the ultimate goal for the scholarship is to provide a high-performing student the support they need to complete their doctorate and positively contribute, with an emphasis on agency and organization leadership, to the industry which is in need of more personnel.

“I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to invest in the VCU mission,” Zucker said. “I'm delighted to mentor and be available to help these young professionals. That it’s blending academic practice with organization attunement is just something I'm interested in. I hope they're interested in it, but it's not the only way to fly; there's other ways to fly. For me, it's so exciting. So I'm grateful.”

In addition to the scholarship, Dominion Care, a Virginia-based company focused on mental health services where Zucker is an operating partner and executive chairman of the board, will host three clinical interns and a marketing intern during the fall 2025 semester.

First steps

Back in 1977, after a call with a member of the department of psychology faculty, Zucker learned he was accepted into the VCU graduate program, marking the first school to extend such an offer.

The graduate program at VCU offered a new reality for Zucker who was coming from a massive program at Albany with classes of up to 500 students. Now, he was in a class of 11 students, some of whom already had their master’s degrees and were pursuing their doctorate, and he was working to get his footing as a young graduate student and budding therapist.

Worthington served as Zucker’s advisor and proved to be a massive influence on Zucker’s life. During meetings over coffee, Worthington implored Zucker to find himself, to take classes that interested him and explore those interests to develop his niche. He soon saw his capabilities and his grades improving while being excited by the subjects and impressed by the professionalism and enthusiasm exhibited by the faculty.

His relationship with Worthington is one that Zucker reflects on glowingly.

“He's a man of faith, had a great smile, and he, in fact, worked within the rubric of Christian psychology,” Zucker said. “I'm like a Jewish guy from Long Island. Didn't matter at all. He understood who I was.

“I felt uncomfortable at first, like, oh, you know, I'm not from a church family. A little bit of an outcast is what I'm trying to communicate. It was all my own visage. It wasn't how anyone treated me. And he helped me get these internships. He was all gung ho for it. I felt so supported in a very special way by him.”

Building the foundation

During the early years of his graduate education, Zucker cut his teeth working an assistantship at an adult midlife counseling center – with the added bonus of having his tuition waived. The assistantship offered the opportunity to not only apply the teachings from the classroom but also develop vital administrative skills.

Taking Worthington’s advice to heart, Zucker pursued courses outside of the psychology department to refine his purpose. An elective titled Education of Self which was taught alongside medical students from the MCV campus allowed Zucker to master his clinical and interpersonal skills. He also added M.B.A.-level courses from the School of Business, covering organization development and introductory management.

To complement his business education, Zucker secured a practicum at Philip Morris. While inside the mega corporation, he learned to operate an employee-based quality management program which was designed by employees to safeguard fellow employees from accidents in the workplace. This was a lasting takeaway for Zucker when opening future psychiatric hospitals as he incorporated front-line employees to create effective safety training platforms like professional assault response training to protect staff.

Using all the tools

The synthesis of psychology and business came to a head for Zucker as he compiled his experiences outside of the classroom with the teachings of influential faculty.

“I think the core training at VCU was in professional, clinical and counseling work,” Zucker said. “I learned to do diagnosing, evaluations and write reports. Then I picked up these business classes and the organization development work. Through meeting with Everett [Worthington Jr.], my advisor, every couple of weeks, Don Kiesler, Ph.D., John Mahoney, Ph.D., and Donelson Forsyth, Ph.D. Through constant iterations, these fellas helped me. They help me sharpen the integration of all of these tools.”

Zucker moved to California in 1982, and earned his Ph.D. from VCU in 1983. 

“I thought I would be a psychotherapist to the stars, and instead I ended up working in a Medicaid residential treatment center with juvenile delinquents, sponsored by Dr. Erik Erikson,” Zucker said. “And I loved these kiddos. I never got hit. I got insulted a lot. I always laughed that off.” 

As an adolescent specialist in the facility, his interest in patient care grew. The role proved challenging, but it was something he was well-equipped to handle because of his education.

“I was so well prepared by VCU that I had great confidence and comfort in who I was. And what I learned at VCU is when you make errors in therapy, you just have to learn how to fix them. You're not always perfect and understanding of the patient or the future pathway, and you just have to have the humility and technical expertise to say, ‘Gee, I missed that point. Can we do it again?’”

Emulating his mentors

Following a career spanning over four decades as a co-founder of Stars Behavioral Health Group, a company that provides mental health services for over 40,000 Californians, Zucker retired from his role as president and CEO in 2016 and now serves as a board director and senior advisor. 

In 2018, Zucker joined as operating partner and executive chairman of the board at Dominion Care which is a company focused on providing autism, mental health, substance use and behavioral health services in Virginia. Additionally, Zucker acts as a consultant for CEOs in the behavioral health care industry nationwide.

Now, Zucker finds himself in a role not dissimilar to the one that so many of the faculty at VCU played in Zucker’s life.

“As the [Dominion Care] operating partner, I guide the CEO directly,” Zucker said. “I help develop the strategy for the company, the IT capabilities, the professional development, the strategic plan…I like being the wise mentor. I’m not the guy chopping the wood anymore.”

Whether it’s guiding fellow executives or scholarship recipients, Zucker credits his education in preparing for this current stage of his career.

“My post CEO career really is one of mentoring, advising, strategizing,” Zucker said. “It’s sort of like a game of golf, using many different clubs from the bag. All skills I was taught at VCU: how to pitch, how to putt. It's interesting. I'm not the business leader. I'm the business advisor. I learned how to calibrate that and deliver that in all the many, many myriad experiences I enjoyed at VCU.”