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Tennesee: Memorial chooses new leader

By: Emily Bregel
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Leo Brown

With experience as a leader in regional health care systems and overseeing large-scale construction projects, Memorial Hospital’s new president and chief executive officer said he is ready to lead the hospital as it embarks upon a multi-million-dollar expansion project.

“I think continuing to grow the marketplace for Memorial Health Systems is part of the opportunity that’s there,” said Jim Hobson, a Memphis native with 13 years of health care leadership experience in the Southeast. “We will continue to reach further out into the region of East Tennessee and probably parts of North Georgia.”

Memorial Hospital officials announced on Tuesday their selection of Mr. Hobson, who officially will assume his role as CEO at the hospital in early November. Mr. Hobson replaces former CEO Ruth Brinkley, who left the hospital in December.

Mr. Hobson said Tuesday in a phone interview that he learned of his selection at the start of the week.

“It’s really been the last 72 hours or so that this thing has come to closure,” he said. “It’s been a little bit of a whirlwind, but it’s obviously a lot of fun and a lot of excitement and anticipation for everybody.”

Mr. Hobson, 47, now is executive vice president and chief operating officer of Phoebe Putney Health Systems in Albany, Ga., a community-owned, nonprofit hospital system.

Mrs. Brinkley, who in April 2007 was named Chattanooga area manager of the year by local business groups, now works out of Tucson, Ariz., as president and CEO of Ascension Health’s Carondelet Health Network and the West ministry market leader for Ascension Health.

Mr. Hobson comes to the hospital at a “pivotal time,” as Memorial gets set to break ground next summer on a $330 million expansion project, said Leo Brown, chairman of the board at Memorial and partner at Chattanooga-based financial services company Davis, Smith & Brown, Inc.

“He’s had a lot of experience in building projects and he’s obviously had leadership experience, so it’s a very, very important time for us. He is uniquely suited to lead us through this,” Mr. Brown said.

Previously, Mr. Hobson was vice president of professional services at Bristol Regional Medical Center in Bristol, Tenn., and before that he held a number of management positions with Methodist Hospitals of Memphis.

After an eight-month search for a new CEO, the search committee selected Mr. Hobson unanimously out of more than 100 resumes received, said Mr. Brown, a member of the panel.

“It was an agonizing decision as you went through the process and dealt with highly qualified candidates. But when we got down to the end, he was everybody’s choice. I don’t want to do that again for a long time,” he added with a laugh.

Physician members of the search committee were impressed with Mr. Hobson’s commitment to work closely with medical staff, said Dr. Sam Currin, a local urologist and immediate past president of the Memorial staff.

“He’s impressed us with a track record of honest, no-nonsense dealing with the medical staff to where they aligned themselves and concentrated on things that seemed to be mutually important and for the benefit of the patients,” he said. “That’s something that we honored at Memorial with the past administration and (we) look forward to continuing it in the future with Jim.”

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