Joseph R. Turner

JD, Co-Founder, President & CEO of Exponents

Joe Turner is the co-founder and current CEO of Exponents, a 30-year-old community based human services and harm reduction program in NYC.  Exponents provides compassionate and person-centered drug treatment, recovery and wellness services to the most vulnerable New Yorkers.  Since its founding in 1988, over 11, 000 program graduates have completed its programs-many of whom are in management positions of nonprofit agencies.  At Exponents, “…we meet people where they are, but we don’t leave them there”!

Joe was born and raised in Brownsville, (never ran…never will) Brooklyn, NY. Inspired by the courage of civil rights lawyers he attended and graduated from Hofstra University School of Law, where he went on to practice law in the fields of criminal justice, civil rights and general practice. He has worked for the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Community Action for Legal Services.  For the past 35 years, he has soldiered for social justice, compassionate human services and recovery.

As CEO, Joe led Exponents through the disruption of COVID-19, enabling the agency to continue to provide drug treatment and crisis management services without interruption. Quickly turning to tele-health and tele-visual individual and group counseling sessions, as well as establishing a 24-hour crisis hotline, Exponents retained over 95% of its program participants.   Joe has often said that “…every crisis shines a bright light on our strengths and weaknesses”.  Indeed, the strength of Exponents that was gleaned from the COVID crisis, was the forging of a “community of hope”.

He is  co-chair of the New York State Harm Reduction Association,  a member of the Board of Directors of Exodus Transitional Communities, co-chair of the Harm Reduction Committee of the Association of Substance Abuse Providers of NYS, a member of the New York Certification Board and the Executive Committee of the NYS OASAS Recovery Implementation Team. In addition, Joe is the, as well as the former president of President of the Board of Directors of Friends of Recovery –NY (FOR-NY);