Steamboat Springs Newspaper

Lisa Brown named CEO of Visiting Nurse Association

Lisa Brown can remove the interim label from her position with the Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association.

Brown, who has served as acting CEO of the nonprofit health care agency since January, has been named its permanent chief executive officer.

The announcement was made Monday and culminates a search process that included more than 40 applicants from across the country, VNA board President John Merrill said. Brown succeeds former longtime CEO Sue Birch, who left the agency late last year to become executive director of the state’s Department of Health Care Policy and Financing. Brown had served as the VNA’s director of development since 2009. Prior to that she was the program manager at the Yampa Valley Community Foundation. She also is a member of the Steamboat Springs School Board.

“I am very honored to be affiliated with the VNA and all of the amazing people who make our work happen,” Brown said in a news release. “I, along with the rest of the staff, am excited to continue creating community health and wellness throughout the region.”

The primary mission of the VNA is to provide wellness care on a number of fronts, from immunization clinics to prenatal care and tobacco prevention. It operates a clinic in Craig that employs two physicians, and a hospice and medical office in Steamboat Springs.

The VNA reaches 27,000 people in Routt, Moffat and Jackson counties. Its 2011 budget is about $8 million. The VNA is funded by local, state and federal governments as well as individual donors and state and national foundations.

Recent VNA projects include The Haven Assisted Living Center in Hayden and the Rollingstone Respite House in Steamboat.

Brown is to be formally introduced as the VNA’s new director during the agency’s annual Hospice Dinner tonight.

"In her five months as acting CEO, Lisa's leadership style has been readily embraced by all of the employees of the agency, and she has made many, positive and significant changes in the day to day operations,” Merrill said in a news release.

Neither Brown nor Merrill could be reached for comment Monday afternoon.

Feeling better about the Steamboat Springs real estate market ...

We’ve all seen news reports of rising and lowering unemployment, of massive foreclosures and declining foreclosure, of rebounding markets then a double drip in home prices. It’s been month after month of highs and lows and ups and downs enough to make people sick.

But over the last 6 months, I feel the Steamboat Springs Real Estate market has been reduced to a more children’s roller coaster than one that makes people sick.