Ron Baker, 56, and a native of Humboldt, will serve as the new chief executive officer of Allen County Hospital beginning Jan. 28, 2013. BAKER SEES his entry at ACH coming at a busy time.
“It’s a great opportunity to come back home and hopefully retire from the same place I started all those years ago,” Baker said in a phone conversation Monday afternoon.
Baker worked as a lab technician at ACH from 1978 to 1983.
He is a 1974 graduate of Humboldt High School. From there he attended the University of Kansas where he received a bachelor’s of science in medical technology.
After his stint at ACH, Baker went back to KU — “I’m a Jayhawk through and through” — to pursue a master’s in business administration.
For 10 years Baker worked as a lab director for a hospital in Independence, Mo.
In 1997, he and his wife, Ellie, left the city life and he began work in small rural hospitals in western Kansas, central Missouri and in northern Iowa.
He currently is CEO of Santanta District Hospital in Santanta, which is between Garden City and Liberal.
His wife remains in rural Sweet Springs, Mo., where she is a preschool teacher in Alma, Mo.
Her mother is in a Kansas City-based nursing home.
“She visits her most days,” Baker said, and plans to remain near her mother until circumstances dictate otherwise.
Ellie is a native of Independence, Kan.
The Bakers have two children, Adam, 32, of Cincinnati, and Melinda, 31, of Denver. Both are married and have two children each, “with another on the way,” Baker said.
Baker’s parents are Doris and Melvin Baker of Humboldt. Lori Moran, Iola, is Baker’s sister.
“It’s going through great organizational changes as it moves away from the HCA (Hospital Corporation of America) lease agreement to self-management,” he said.
“The board will have a much greater role in the governance of the hospital.
“It’s an opportunity for different paradigms with HCA, as well as internally,” he said.
Baker has experience with change.
When CEO of the Sweet Springs hospital, he oversaw the rebirth of the hospital and its new construction.
“We started from scratch,” he said of the effort in the small town of 1,400 to build a new hospital, recruit physicians and open two rural health care clinics.
Baker served as hospital administrator in Greensburg and Minneola and was hospital and nursing facility administrator in Hampton, Iowa.
Baker is also an accomplished organist, studying under the late Marjorie Gard of Iola.
“I learned on the Bowlus organ in Wesley Methodist Church,” he said, a gift of the late Tom Bowlus, for various occasions, including weddings.
Baker said he remains active as an organist, noting that this weekend he has five performances, including a wedding Saturday in Garden City, Sunday evening services in Ulysses and Christmas morning services in Sweet Springs.
“It’s quite a bit of fun,” he said of the avocation.
Baker will be relieving Larry Peterson, chief financial officer of the hospital, of his additional duties as interim CEO.
Humboldt native is CEO of Allen County Hospital
