About Us
Our Mission Statement
The Institute for Veterans Health & Social Policy is dedicated to identifying and advancing practical, high-impact solutions that improve resource utilization across the systems that serve veterans and their families. We leverage technology, research, and the lived expertise of veterans to illuminate overlooked challenges, increase public and institutional awareness, and develop actionable, cost-effective policy and programmatic recommendations. By focusing on attainable reforms with measurable benefit, we aim to strengthen the health, well-being, and economic stability of the veteran community.
about the founder & ceo of Ivhsp
Matthew A. Williams, MPA
Matt Williams is a 100% service-disabled veteran of the U.S. Navy. He is the owner of a service-disabled veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) that designs and refits medical laundry facilities across the country, including at VA hospitals.
Matt holds a master of pubic administration from The University of Akron, where he successfully advocated for the funding and construction of a $26 million student recreation and wellness center as an undergraduate student in the 1990s. He went on to serve as the Director of Forensics (speech & debate) for several years, helping to rebuild a dormant program into a perennial national contending forensics program.
Over the course of his career, Matt has secured approximately half a billion dollars in federal, state, local, and NGO contracts for his employers, clients, and his own businesses. He is an entrepreneur at heart, but he is driven to improve systems that adversely impact vulnerable populations who are disadvantaged by structural and systemic bureaucratic processes and systems that could be improved. His academic training as a policy analyst and political operative, coupled with his extensive experience in business and Lean Six Sigma process management, have enabled him to not only identify system failures but to diagnose those failures to propose solutions.
Matt founded the Institute for Veterans Health & Social Policy in 2025 in response to his own frustrations navigating the VA healthcare system. He has drawn extensively on his own experiences and the lived experiences of other veterans to inform his writing and analyses.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has world class facilities and great practitioners who care deeply for their work and the veteran population that they serve. Unfortunately, bureaucracies (and those who administer them) are not always in perfect alignment with the needs of the beneficiaries of those systems. His approach is not antagonistic or adversarial: Matt is uniquely positioned to propose solutions. At the end of the day, identifying a problem without identifying the corresponding solution does little to a advance the interests of the veterans to whom this country owes a debt that can never be fully repaid. He is optimistic, though, that the Institute for Veterans Health & Social Policy can be part of the solution.