>> So I started at George Mason as an undergrad, and started studying finance.
I was there in Fairfax, Virginia, for about two years, and just wasn't feeling
like that was the right path for me.
I'd always been intrigued by business and finance, but I wanted to get into something more
of a social service, and self-fulfilling, which is why I started looking into health care,
and I researched some local programs in the northeast, and Penn State really stood out to me
as one of the best programs for health administration and health policy.
So I transferred up.
I spent two more years in finishing my Bachelor's, especially in Health Policy
and Administration, and felt that I had so much more to learn and decided to stay
for the Master's in Health Administration Program, as well.
Which was definitely a good decision, and something I don't regret.
After graduation from my Master's program, I went out and did a fellowship,
administrative fellowship, in Middletown, Connecticut,
for a hospital called Middlesex Hospital.
A community hospital actually very similar to Mount Nittany here locally.
And I spent about seven years there in numerous different roles,
starting as an administrative fellow for a year, and moving on to business and operations manager
for the nursing department, and then after three years in that position,
moved into a physician practice relations director role,
where I was more on the outpatient side of things,
learning about our physician practices, both employed and independent.
And then we had two kids.
Two kids that had numerous health issues along the way, and we were looking to be closer
to family, so we were looking back toward the central Pennsylvania area,
where we still have family on my wife's side, and looked at Geisinger as an opportunity
to join a larger integrated health care delivery network.