What makes you tick?

I like the challenge of taking on new things.

What path did you follow to get here?

Call me a frustrated doctor who didn’t have the grades to get into medical school, so I got my business degree instead with a concentration in healthcare. As an east coaster, I’ve always wanted to head west, so after graduate school I made it as far as Las Vegas. I worked in hospitals, large multi-specialty medical practices and had my first taste of managed care. After 7 years, I continued my trek west and landed in Los Angeles at a small firm involved in Medi-Cal managed care and IPAs. The company was EHS Medical Group and I’ve been associated with them ever since. EHS is now a client of SynerMed and has grown from 5,000 members to more than 240,000 members.

Why SynerMed?

I was a senior executive at EHS Medical Group from 1994 to 2006 when the owner decided it was time to retire. The company was sold and the new owners wanted to transfer the management of EHS to SynerMed. I came over in a senior management capacity and brought a bunch of talented staff with me. Since then SynerMed has grown 4-fold to more than 650,000 members. We’ve got a great team and everyone’s a contributor!

What’s your favorite thing about your job?

The challenges and opportunities that arise as a result of the growth we’ve seen in the past 6 years are incredible. If I had to pick just one thing, it would have to be the people. Again, we’ve got a great team. Not only at the top but at all levels of the organization. Everyone has ideas and SynerMed is willing to try many of them out and reward the initiator for the idea.

What does downtime look like for you?

Is there such a thing? Travel. Friends. Reading a good book. Taking in a show. Finding something to do in LA that I didn’t know about before. Enjoying my children and grandchildren.