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Education:
1963 B.A. Cal State U, Los
Angeles
1965 M.A. U of Calif, Berkeley
1965 M.H.A. U of Calif, Los Angeles
1983 Fellowship Yale
University
Professional Achievements: Directed development of a three
hospital system, clinical faculty at USC School of Medicine
Personal Interests: Computers, Tennis,
Travel, History, and Family
Spouse: Joellen, Pharmacist, met at a restaurant
while waiting for a table. Got together after dinner to
continue our conversation.
Parents: Remie & Mabel Aymond Farmer & Housewife
Personal Information: Children: 6, Grandchildren 8, Daughter
with 3 children, lives in England. Don’t get to see them
often enough. Another daughter lives in Colorado, the
others live in the San Francisco area.
Leisure Activities: Computer projects,
home repairs, reading & writing
Semi-Retired Current activities:
Maintain business contacts, reading, and writing for health
care journals. This will change when my lovely wife, Joellen retires from her half-time schedule.
Major Events after BHS: Deciding to go to college,
raising a family, deciding to cease pursuit of PhD, and
going to work.
Recollections of BHS: Good friends, good times,
growing a vision for the future
Graduating left me without specific
goals or a job. I made a decision to join the Marine Corps,
thinking that I could take advantage of the GI Bill to help
finance my education. It taught me that there was a whole
new world out there. I went through a specialized “cold
weather” training program, after which I was assigned to
Twenty Nine Palms, in the Mojave Desert. I was in the USMC
for four years, two of which I spent in Hawaii teaching
communications to Marines. On discharge I went to LSU for
two years, then I had to take a break to sustain myself
financially. This involved a move to California, since the
job market was better on the West Coast. After a two-year
break, I went back and completed work for a BA in political
science. At that point I began to believe that this
education thing wasn’t bad, and decided to a take teaching
assistantship while I continued grad school. This was the
Mario Savio era, which ended up leaving me disillusioned
with how academia handled itself.
At that point, I decided not to
continue pursuing a PhD, and took a position with Los
Angeles County as a management fellow, to learn more about
organizational functioning. The assignments I drew led me
to health care and I became assistant administrator of a
large hospital in the Los Angeles area. While in that
position I went to UCLA for a Masters in Hospital
Administration. Following the completion of that program, I
became CEO of a large hospital in Northern California. Not
being emotionally free of academia, after a few years, I
negotiated time off and went to Yale University for a
fellowship program in advanced management. In short, I was
President/CEO of two hospital organizations for some 11
years.
n 1989, still wanting to explore, I
left my position with the hospital and founded a consulting
firm to try and bring closer working relations between
hospitals and physicians. This offered me a tremendous
opportunity to learn more about the profession I was
committed to, and more about the dynamics of human nature.
I often remind myself how lucky I have
been to be able to work hard and thoroughly enjoy the work I
was doing. Both Joellen and I consider ourselves fortunate
to be part of interesting and challenging work. At least we
say that now.
We are also lucky enough to enjoy a
lovely family, of which we are sincerely proud. We now live
in Sonoma County, California, which is part of the
California wine country. We don’t anticipate any
significant changes except to learn to enjoy life even more,
and to spend more time at our retreat in the Sierras. We
also hope to achieve our objectives of doing more traveling,
and just enjoy life. We say this even though our family and
friends think we are always traveling. Oh by the way, we
just returned from Europe after spending three weeks taking
a river boat cruise on the Danube, and visiting with family
in England.
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