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Published on 09/29/1999 All articles from this issue

Reeder settles in as newest El Camino Hospital board member

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By Leslie K. Martin

Town Crier Staff Writer

Resident Profile

El Camino Hospital is not just a hospital to David Reeder. It's a part of his family history, a place where family members have been patients, where his two children were born.

Reeder was interested in the hospital even before he invested eight years of community service on the Los Altos City Council (he was mayor from 1989 to 1990) and an additional eight years on the Los Altos Planning Commission. But after 16 years of nightly council and commission meetings, he needed a break. So, for two years he concentrated on his work as a program manager with Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications in San Jose.

But Reeder tends to be a workaholic, and looks to outside interests to break up the work hours. The time and opportunity were right in March when the hospital finally hooked him with a district board appointment.

Reeder described the difference between the board seats for the city and for the hospital. "... [C]ities worry ... are the streets paved, do we have enough police, are we building too many big houses? In a hospital, you really worry about, or are concerned about, providing adequate medical care for the community. And of course, in the case of El Camino Hospital, it's a much broader community than just Los Altos," he said.

Unlike his board peers, Reeder does not have a medical background. He brings other knowledge to the table. "I can contribute the background of spending eight years on the city council and knowing how to deal with both the public and with the services that a government organization provides. And secondly, I think I bring a strong financial background, both with the experience from the city and from business," Reeder said.

"I think the future isn't really bleak," he said about the current status of El Camino Hospital. "The approach that I see in the next few years is in the positive direction of looking for more revenue sources, not just from the insurance industry, but providing new creative programs that will bring more patients into the hospital in a revenue-generating kind of situation."

Reeder sees the hospital as an extension of his community. Having a seat on the district board allows him to return something to that community, and being able to see the immediate results of board decisions is self-rewarding, he said.

Reeder explained what he'd like to accomplish during this board term.

"I would like to see the hospital get to a point where it can continue to provide the quality services that it's back up to providing today, and I'd like to have a positive revenue stream that will generate the reserves that we need to make sure that the hospital's going to be healthy for the next 10 years," he said.