Vail Valley Medical Center has new CEO

John Cassin says hospital must determine what a ‘growing, aging’ community needs

Get News Feeds

By Scott N. Miller
eagle county correspondent
May 8, 2008

Comments
Print Email

VAIL — John Cassin was on a plane Friday, headed to what he thought was a new job in Abu Dhabi. He’s been detoured to Vail.

Cassin was hired Wednesday as the new president and chief executive officer of Vail Valley Medical Center. He starts May 16, and replaces Greg Repetti, whose resignation was announced April 18.

It can take months to replace the top person at a hospital. That this happened in a couple of weeks was the result of some good fortune, said Vail Valley Medical Center Board of Directors Chairman Ron Davis.

“John’s well-known in the Colorado medical community,” Davis said. “We knew he was available ... It was a fast sequence of events.”

Cassin’s most recent job was strategic planning for the Anschutz Medical Center in Aurora, which is bringing three hospitals, five medical schools and several other facilities to the site of the former Fitzsimmons Army Hospital there.

Cassin, who lives in Gennessee near Denver and who has a home in Singletree, was between jobs, and was ready to finish negotiations with a Cleveland-based medical company to run a project in the Persian Gulf state of Abu Dhabi.

“It wouldn’t been a five-year project,” Cassin said. “It’s the opportunity to build a massive facility.”

But, he said, the opportunity to work in Vail, and to have his family all in one place outweighed the lure of the Abu Dhabi job.

The hospital is already well established in its orthopedic and cancer care facilities, Cassin said. The hospital could expand its current cardiac care, he said, and needs to determine what else “a growing, aging” community needs.

Cassin said with his planning background, and roughly 30 years in the medical industry, he’s confident he can help make those changes.