Top PeaceHealth executive to retire in June

PeaceHealth, the Vancouver-based nonprofit, Catholic health system, said Tuesday that its president and chief mission officer, Alan Yordy, will retire effective June 30, 2015. The nonprofit said a national search for his successor will begin immediately.

Yordy, 62, “feels the time is right” to retire, “with the strong leadership now in place,” Jeremy Rush, a spokesman for PeaceHealth, said in an email to The Columbian.

In a news release, Sister Andrea Nenzel, chairwoman of PeaceHealth’s board, said Yordy “has overseen a time of incredible growth” while keeping the nonprofit focused on its mission of “caring for all in need.”

Yordy, who holds two master’s degrees from the University of Oregon, including one in business administration, spent 33 years in health care, including 25 with PeaceHealth. The nonprofit employs 16,000 people across facilities in Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Those facilities include PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver.

As PeaceHealth’s top executive for 10 years, the nonprofit said, Yordy accomplished several major projects, including growing PeaceHealth Medical Group from 250 providers to 850; building Cottage Grove Community Medical Center, Peace Island Medical Center and other facilities; and helping to secure funding to improve PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center in Alaska.

“During his tenure,” the nonprofit said, “PeaceHealth doubled in size and expanded many services.”

Yordy’s tenure also experienced turbulence, including a labor dispute with nurses at PeaceHealth’s St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham, and budget cuts and layoffs due, in part, to the loss of a contract with Kaiser Permanente.

In 2012, Yordy received total compensation of $1.43 million, including base pay and deferred compensation, according to PeaceHealth’s Form 990 filing with the IRS. He joined PeaceHealth in 1981, when it was known as Health and Hospital Services.

He held several positions, including assistant administrator for strategy and planning at Sacred Heart General Hospital in Eugene, Ore., and CEO of Mid-Valley Healthcare in Oregon. In 1999, Yordy became the chief operations officer of PeaceHealth Oregon Region. Later, he was appointed as CEO and chief mission officer of the Oregon Region. In 2004, he was named PeaceHealth’s president and chief mission officer.

“When PeaceHealth is strong and focused, it is a good time to pass the torch to the next generation of leaders,” Yordy said in the news release. “I am leaving secure in the knowledge that a strong leadership team is in place, committed to the mission of PeaceHealth and to its future success so that our service to communities in the Pacific Northwest endures.”