MONROE — Valley General Hospital’s chief executive for the past nine years announced Wednesday that he is leaving in July.
Mark Judy, 61, a longtime hospital administrator in Snohomish County, was hired to lead the Monroe hospital in 2000.
“It was just time,” Judy said Wednesday afternoon, adding that he had been thinking of leaving the job for the past month. His last day will be July 29.
Although the announcement of Judy’s departure was unexpected, hospital board chairman Neil Watkins said that Judy was not forced out by the board.
The parting “was as amicable as any separation can be,” he said. “I’m a huge Mark Judy fan.”
Watkins said the search for a new chief executive will begin soon, and the board hopes to have Judy’s replacement hired by the time he departs.
During his tenure, Judy helped save a family practice clinic in Sultan. And in 2006, he asked the hospital to pay for advertisements in area newspapers in which he pleaded for an end to a two-year dispute between an insurance company and emergency-room doctors that left some patients hit with unexpected bills. An agreement was reached about a month later.
Judy’s departure was announced the same day the board said it will ask voters to approve a levy increase in August.
If approved, the current maintenance and operations levy of 8.7 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value would increase to 35 cents, said Kathy Nelson, hospital spokeswoman. A property owner whose house is valued at $300,000 now pays $26 a year to the hospital district for that tax. It would go up to $105 per year if the tax is approved, Nelson said.
The money would be used for repairs to the current hospital, including a new roof and installation of energy-efficient windows, hiring more specialty doctors and the possibility of opening an urgent care clinic in the Cathcart-Clearview area, she said.
Judy said that between now and the time he leaves, he will work hard to build community support for the tax increase, which he said is vital to the hospital’s future.
Judy has spent much of his life working at hospitals in Snohomish County, beginning his career at Everett’s former General Hospital in 1975 as an assistant administrator.
After working for three years in California, Judy returned to Everett in 1983. He was General Hospital Medical Center president and CEO from 1984 to 1994.
In 2003, three years after coming to the Monroe hospital, mounting losses threatened to close the doors on a family practice clinic in Sultan. Judy stepped in, and the hospital approved a loan of $308,000 in start-up money and provided other assistance.
Community volunteers also rallied to raise money for the clinic, Sky Valley Family Medicine, which remains in operation today.
In 2005, Valley General opened a new three-story building just south of its current site at 14841 179th Ave. SE to provide room for the hospital to grow and for area medical groups to expand. It also bought a $1.4 million magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, machine.
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486, salyer@heraldnet.com.
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