J. CRAIG QUICK
Assistant Vice President, Community & Regional Affairs
Pitt County Memorial Hospital

April 20, 2000

Interviewer: Beth Nelson

Beth Nelson: Talk about pertinent aspects of your background. I remember you grew up in Rocky Mount.

Craig Quick: I did indeed and spent all my young years in Rocky Mount. I graduated from high school in 1964 and left there and went to UNC/Chapel Hill for undergraduate school. I finished there in 1968 and I also got married in 1968 so it was a good year. I worked for a short while with an insurance company in the Chapel Hill area and worked also with Burlington Industries; I came back to Rocky Mount and worked for a year or so with Burlington Industries. I did some military duty and did the insurance and really was searching as to what I wanted to do. I decided to go back to graduate school because it was always a safe bet to go back to school.

I came here to East Carolina to the MBA Program and started that in 1970 and finished up in 1972. I was a full time student; my wife, bless her heart, being a nurse she was able to find a job pretty easily in the area. She worked with Prep Shirt as an industrial nurse for a while and then in a nursing home here for a while. She had a variety of jobs, which she was the full time wage earner and I was a student and finished the MBA Program in 1972 and was looking around for a job. I never really thought I would stay in this area, as I always wanted to go back to the Piedmont; go back to the Chapel Hill area. I was looking around and interviewing with several companies and saw something at the hospital in the Business Office. I interviewed there and was offered the job as Business Office Manager at PCMH in June of 1972.

It was interesting that Jack Richardson, who was the Administrator at that particular time, was from Rocky Mount also so we had a common bond there and I got to know Jack pretty well.

Beth Nelson: Was he the person that interviewed you and hired you?

Craig Quick: He interviewed me and then a variety of folks also talked with me. Buck Sitterson did and he was the Controller at that particular time so I worked with Buck; I reported to him since I was the Business Office manager. It was an interesting job; the first major job that I had out of school, I guess, except for the textile job that I had with Burlington Industries for a while in between school. I had fifteen to twenty ladies in the Business Office which was quite an experience for a young fellow like me and the ages were from young to old and you can imagine. I have come to appreciate that job; it kind of got me in shape for the business world reality. You can imagine, the air conditioning was never right, it was always too cold or too hot or this or that, but they were a good group of folks and they kind of took me in and showed me the ropes. During that time we had our first child and I can remember a party and they presented me with a high chair and just really treated me well. It was a good group of people. So that was my first job and my first association.

Beth Nelson: How old were you when you took that job?

Craig Quick: I was about twenty-five or twenty-six, I guess. Rick Gilstrap was here as the Assistant Administrator, Jack Richardson the Administrator, Buck Sitterson the Controller. They were a great group of people to work with to get your start and it was really like a family.

Beth Nelson: What drew you to come here back at that point? When you think about coming out with a Masters degree, I guess probably at that point you felt like you could write your own ticket, you probably had a number of different options; the Triangle area had been appealing to you. At that point the hospital didn't have as much to offer compared what it has to offer now to somebody coming out of graduate school. You had to have seen something there that made you want to latch on and be a part of that. What did you see there?

Craig Quick: Well, I think it was a small place at that time and I felt like I could make an impact on that and my ideal in the beginning was to go into financial areas like the Business Office and I felt like I could make a difference; I had the education that I could be ahead of the game. I had always wanted to go into Personnel. My undergraduate degree is in Industrial Relations which tends to go into the Personnel area and I had always wanted to do that. I saw that also as maybe an opportunity and as it worked out I was in the Business Office as manager for two years and then indeed we started the first Personnel Office in 1974 and I was employed as the first Personnel Manager for the hospital. It was a great opportunity for me to go into that field which I always wanted to do, always enjoyed personnel and dealing with people.

So, it was close to home, close to Rocky Mount where my family lived and still lives. It was close enough that I could get back and see them on important occasions but I didn't have to get involved in the everyday activities, necessarily.

Beth Nelson: Timing wise, this would have been in 1972 and the bond issue would have been passed already at that point. The school of medicine was soon to be a reality. In a way, I guess, for somebody of your age that would have been an exciting opportunity to be a part of that but also a daunting opportunity to think about being a part of an academic environment which at that point you couldn't see what direction exactly it was going to go in. You sort of hitched your wagon to something that could have been a great opportunity but you took on some risk too.

Craig Quick: To tell you the truth you are right. That had already occurred, the bond issue, and I had certainly read about that and we have in our archives here many of the documents and newspaper clippings and all that tell all about that, but I was not that involved in that. It had occurred before I got there; I was really concentrating on just getting my career going. That did not have as much of an impact on my decision to come with the hospital. My wife being a nurse and in health care and it was nice to be in that environment and I have always felt like with the hospital that it was kind of a noble thing to do. It is an employer that you can be proud that you are working for and health care is something that I think is a noble profession. All of those came together. Being close to Rocky Mount, as I said and my wife came from Rocky Mount also. We both graduated from high school at the same time, as a matter of fact, we were junior high school sweethearts so we have come from there and being from the same place it was a good place to be. It was an exciting environment to work in. I guess I didn't realize then how exciting it would be but it has been really unreal. There is never a dull moment and my career has been such that I have had many opportunities and have been able to do many things starting out in the Business Office and then working in Personnel for ten or eleven years.

We were beginning to grow and becoming a medical center at that particular time. Charlie Fennessy came in and took over the Human Resources area and I went into the Community Relations area and the fund raising.

Beth Nelson: How long have you been in Community Relations?

Craig Quick: Well, since about from 1983 or 1984. In these latter years now I have continued the fund raising and the community relations and have gone into the lobbying area, the legislative, which is really exciting. So it has been a career with a variety as far as I am concerned. I will be here twenty-eight years this June but it has been so exciting and I have been fortunate enough to be associated with some very fine people. I mentioned Jack Richardson who retired, then Rick Gilstrap who left us, Buck Sitterson who just retired. Dave McRae came a couple of years later to start the Rehab Center and that has been just a special privilege and treat to be around him. I really think about how fortunate I am to have been associated with him all these years. He has such talent and I have seen him grow so much. I always knew that he was a special person and had special talents and I guess some of those in his younger years were kind of hidden because he was directly in the rehab area concentrating on that but it was quite evident in the beginning that he was a leader and a person that one would look up to and that has certainly been the case. I have been able to have some fine people to be associated with.

Beth Nelson: Talk a little about what the hospital has meant to the community and the region.

Craig Quick: It's phenomenal to think about. The Chamber talks about the turnover of money in the community and how much it has meant to the economy. That's pretty obvious and I don't have any facts or figures only that I know that it has been a boom to this area. I don't know what Greenville would have done without the hospital, the school of medicine. The university used to be the largest employer at one time and then I believe Burroughs Wellcome and now certainly we are. I think sometimes when you are in the middle of it and you are a part of the organization you are not as aware of what it means to the community but I have been able to, I think, step back and take a look at all the areas around Greenville and how much it has meant to them.

I lived in Ayden for about fifteen or sixteen years and traveled from Ayden to Greenville to work and Mimi always worked here but in that small community it was quite obvious the number of people that worked for the hospital and having medical care in your backyard means so much to folks that used to have to travel to the Duke and Chapel Hill now can come to us. As a matter of fact that was made pretty aware in my case. Back in the early eighties my father had a stroke. He was living in Rocky Mount, a robust individual who worked with the railroad most all of his life. But he had a stroke and I remember going to Rocky Mount when I received the call. I went to the hospital and they told me he had a stroke and that they needed to get him somewhere else. They said they were going to transfer him to Duke, I think is where they were going to transfer him, and I asked them why they didn't sent him to Pitt Memorial and it was just the case that they had not thought about that. Referral patterns had not developed to send folks here. They told me okay that they would do that and he was transferred here to PCMH, stayed here for two or three weeks to stabilize him. The realization that the facility that we had came to me then that this was just a fine place we have here. After that he was transferred to the VA Hospital in Durham where he stayed for seven or eight months and he finally died. Also, my father-in-law, Mimi's father, was here for a while so I have been able to see first hand what a fine place we do have. It really makes you proud when your relatives come and your relatives are cared for, that really makes a lot of difference.

It has been a great place to work and it is exciting as I indicated, but it makes me proud to say that I work with PCMH because it is so well respected in the community and our community is certainly expanding now to all of eastern North Carolina and it's a sense of pride to be an employee here.

Beth Nelson: Let's go into some of the vignette types of things, events, stories, something that you may personally recall. You worked so closely with Jack Richardson over the years you probably remember some of the stories he told.

Craig Quick: I was not here when that bond was being pushed. I think in graduate school I was on the periphery of it and heard and read about it but I can imagine Jack as he was dauntless in his support of it and I remember him talking about visiting all the civic clubs and, as you said, taking all of the abuse that he did, but holding fast to the belief that it had to be. He was a real staunch supporter and some of the stories and some of the personalities that come out in addition to Jack.

Take Buck Sitterson. He is a character and has just retired himself and I am so happy for him as he really seems to be enjoying it. I worked with Buck that first job I had in the Business Office and Buck has such a sense of humor that he can put you at ease and he can make the tightest situation seem a little more presentable.

One of the people that I remember and I deal a lot with now is Ed Warren, Senator Ed Warren and I guess Ed sticks in my memory because he was Chairman of the Board at the time that I was employed and he was the one who wanted to start a Personnel Department and really kind of chose me to be that Personnel manager so I have a great debt of gratitude to Ed Warren because of his association with the hospital and his leadership in those years.

Beth Nelson: Talk a little bit more about Ed Warren. There are people's names that need to be highlighted and credited.

Craig Quick: He had a short stay with the hospital; he was Chairman for a while and then had to resign to, I think he was a county commissioner then, or either went to the House of Representatives, one or the other, but had to leave the hospital board to assume some other position.

Beth Nelson: I don't hear a lot about him in terms of getting the medical school here, the approval and that kind of thing because I think his influence was more local and not on the state level as we know it to be now but I was thinking that in terms of getting appropriations for the hospital, not so much for the hospital but for the medical school which benefits the hospital, those kinds of things nobody has mentioned. Think about that for a minute.

Craig Quick: He was in the House of Representatives for a while and then became a Senator. He was probably in the background fighting for the school of medicine and doing whatever you could. His influence was not as much as it is now as far as appropriations are concerned but then certainly particularly after he got in the Senate became more influential and worked his way up the line he has been so good for the school of medicine and then in turn for us also in the amount of money that he has gotten and now we are recognizing that and dedicating buildings to him and whatever on the ECU campus. I think Ed maybe was kind of in the background as far as his support of the hospital is concerned but I would certainly remember him from my early days when I first came.

Beth Nelson: What buildings are being named for him?

Craig Quick: Well, the new one that has just been named for him - the Life Sciences Building. It was just dedicated. He was instrumental in getting the money for that and now he is very much into heart attacks and strokes and doing something for that; he Chairs the Stroke Committee which is instrumental in North Carolina; one of his next projects is getting money for a Diabetes Center-that is one of his pet projects.

Beth Nelson: Is this at ECU and is it likely to happen?

Craig Quick: Oh, I think it will be, it will, it is going to be one of our Centers of Emphasis and there will be money and research put into that and I think we will see a big emphasis on that. He has taken on causes like that.

Beth Nelson: You know, he is a quiet person in many ways. He is not your typical slap you on the back kind of politician, he has more of a businessman type of air about him and yet he does have quite a bit of influence. How do you observe him when you see him in the General Assembly, things that he does, the relationships he builds, what is his modis operandi, how is he getting the job done? There is something there that causes people to line up behind him.

Craig Quick: You're right in that Ed is not as flamboyant as some other politicians are but I think he is very strong in in building relationships behind the scenes and he has aligned himself, particularly in the Senate, with the leadership of the Senate, with Marc Basnight especially. He has gotten some committee assignments that have put him in the forefront and made his presence felt more so and over the years he has continued to build these relationships. Ed is pretty much of a straight shooter and I think folks have come to respect that and appreciate what he does. I have enjoyed him very much. I have often said that even if he wasn't a Senator and wasn't associated with us that he would be my friend because he is just such a nice person. He and Joan are a fine couple and I think have made a tremendous contribution to this community and it is a pleasure to have him here. He continues to do that too, even more so and he is such a senior person in the Senate and is so well respected that he can do more and more for this part of eastern North Carolina and he truly loves Greenville and East Carolina and the medical community here. He has his heart in that for sure. It has really been a pleasure to be associated with Ed Warren.

Of course there are a lot of people in this area and I am sure they have been mentioned to you in talking with other people. Kenneth Dews and everybody mentions Kenneth and rightly so. Harry Leslie and Wilton Duke have certainly been instrumental in the growth of the hospital. Wilton was the first, I believe, Foundation Chairman, if memory serves me correctly. We formed the Foundation back in 1980. There was a Gifts Committee prior to that which was an informal group that had pooled together to raise money for the hospital prior to our move to the new hospital in 1977 and Kenneth Dews and Harry Leslie were very instrumental in that. Then we needed a formal structure so in 1980 we formed the Foundation and I believe Wilton was the first Chairman of the Foundation. We were sad at his death a couple of years ago but realize how much he meant to us.

Beth Nelson: He was alive when you did the recognition of him, was he not? I remember he was in ill health. I remember being there.

Craig Quick: Yes he was alive and he sure was in ill health. He and his family were there. I am thinking about the leadership and looking back on it, the good Lord was really guiding us along because the leadership was exactly what we needed for the times Jack Richardson and his style of leadership along with Bill Laupus getting the school of medicine started. Both of those leaders were somewhat quiet and I guess unassuming but had great, great qualities about them and were exactly what we needed for the beginning of the new hospital you might say, and the beginning of the school of medicine. Then they stepped aside and Dave McRae and Jim Hallock so we have been blessed with the right people at the right time as we have gone along. I guess that is some of the reason we have been as successful as we have because of those people.

June 9, 2000 (Continuation of earlier interview)

Interviewer: Beth Nelson

Beth Nelson: Talk about the reasons for the hospital's success.

Craig Quick: I think one of the reasons for the hospital's success is our positioning here. I have always appreciated us being the only show in town. That by itself does not guarantee success but when there are no other ones around you, it is not like a big city where there is one on every corner, it certainly helps. It gives you an advantage there and then you have to take that and run with it. Our association with the School of Medicine is something that should be recognized as part of our success. We were here positioned to support them. The decision was made that we should be the learning institute rather than building another hospital so that has certainly helped us.

Then as we talked about prior to this, the leadership that we have had as we came along, for the hospital Jack Richardson was the one that was needed at the time; his style of leadership was very conducive to success and on the School of Medicine side Bill Laupus, who complemented Jack Richardson and there was a real team there on either side so those people led us along in the early days and now with leadership from Dave McRae and Jim Hallock, we have continued to position ourselves and take advantage of being the biggest show in town and continued on. We were positioned by where we were here in eastern North Carolina and then we had the leadership to take advantage of those many opportunities that we had.

Beth Nelson: Not to put words in your mouth but I think of the tie to all the employees that you have known over the years. There seems to be just a special commitment to the mission here that I think has been a part of it too. You probably know as well as anybody because of your role in Personnel originally and your role more recently and you probably get a more unique perspective on that. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Craig Quick: When you start out I think as a small community hospital as we did you have a real emphasis for mission. Our mission in the beginning was to serve just the community here in Pitt County and Greenville and that began to grow when we became affiliated with the School of Medicine. We have always emphasized that and it has not always been the big business. Alot of times when you have the big business and the multitudes of people, the mission sometimes gets kind of lost in the shuffle to your business. We have grown from the community hospital and we have maintained an emphasis that our leaders have always had an eye on the mission and install that in the other employees; Jack Richardson and now Dave McRae. Dave McRae always talks about the mission; the mission serving eastern North Carolina and I think the mission is the forefront in every employee's mind. In orientation classes we point out the mission, we point out our Value Statement and how that leads us towards the mission. There is, more so than I think in any other institutions, because we have been of the size that mission is very important to us and you are able to speak to employees maybe one on one about those kind of things. Probably here in eastern North Carolina with more of a rural flavor than the big city hospitals, mission means a lot. The people here have a dedication to whatever they are doing whether that be health care or farming or whatever, there is tenacity that to stick to it and stay focused on the mission.

Beth Nelson: Is there any individual other than the ones that we have talked about earlier jump out at you, anybody that I might have overlooked in this process?

Craig Quick: Yes, I think we talked about individuals that come to mind such as Kenneth Dews and Ed Warren, those are people that I remember when I first came on who were leaders. Harry Leslie, Wilton Duke, all of those folks, Jack Richardson, Bill Laupus all certainly come to mind and you couldn't talk about the history of our hospital without mentioning them. There are less sung heroes I am sure that have come and gone who contributed to this institution that have made the institution what it is now. Those folks are the ones that really stick out. You could probably take the list of recipients that the Foundation has for their annual benefit. That would kind of give you a flavor of who has been instrumental. If I recall from that list, Ed Waldrop was one of our first recipients and he was Chairman of the Board, I believe, at one time, which was before my time.

Beth Nelson: What would you say Ed Waldrop would be noted for?

Craig Quick: Probably his leadership on the Board and his positive stance in the community toward the hospital. He was a real cheerleader, a real proponent of the hospital. Walter Stroud is another one from the early days.
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Beth Nelson: Did we ask for Ed Waldrop's help when we were trying to get privatization through? I talked to a thousand people about that issue when I was involved with it and I don't remember that we did.

Craig Quick: I don't think Ed actually went out and spoke for us but I remember seeing him at some of the meetings and I remember him hanging in there with us and whomever he encountered he let them know that he was for it.

Beth Nelson: Is he from Greenville or from out in the County somewhere?

Craig Quick: He lives here in Greenville. I am not sure exactly what his origin is. He has been here ever since I have been here. He used to run the Chrysler dealership, I believe. It was Waldrop Motors. He goes to my church, St. Paul's Episcopal Church and is very active in the church. He was a World War II veteran and remember talking to him about his military experience.

Beth Nelson: Several people have mentioned his name but it is like I cannot seem to get a handle on what his involvement was other than being our Board Chairman.

Craig Quick: Walter Stroud, as I mentioned, was a Chairman of the Board for a short while prior to my coming. We could go down that list of recipients from the Foundation. The Eastcare Flight team, Jo Twilley. Jo Twilley was one of the first employees to receive that. She was kind of symbolic of the employee effort in Nursing at that particular time. Charles Gaskins, the Gaskins Leslie Building is named after Charles and Harry Leslie, not because of their contributions monetarily but just because of their hard work from their early days. I think we probably mentioned the people that I would remember.

Beth Nelson: What about challenges for the future?

Craig Quick: The finances, making the place stay afloat. There are so many Federal cutbacks, Federal reimbursement issues that have changed over the years and it is really hard for a hospital to make it on its own and keep going. The smaller the hospital is the more difficulties it will have. We are positioned fairly well because we are large and we have in turn gone out into the community to embrace some of those community hospitals and help them along the way and in turn when we build that network it will help us also. I think it is a challenge to stay on top of things financially. That would be one of our biggest challenges.

Beth Nelson: I think of you spending quite a bit of your time trying to continue and enhance our image in Raleigh and with the General Assembly and those kinds of people. What are some of the issues there that are going to affect us in the future? Do you see our degree of influence increasing or do you see other people eclipsing our influence?

Craig Quick: I think we are in a good pace with influencing the General Assembly. Since I have been working with the General Assembly, probably the last four or five years, I have seen our reputation in the eyes of the people who are there increase. Our Legislators do an excellent job in pushing things for this part of the Country and our reputation is growing. We are becoming, certainly in the eyes of those people, on par if not ahead of the other major medical concerns such as Charlotte and the Winston Salems and those who have been there and been established and have received the funding and received the attention of the Legislature in the past. We are there; East Carolina University and its emphasis on family medicine and its goals that it has attained so far have caught the eye of many a Legislator. So, I think we are doing a great job with that.

Beth Nelson: I know at one time there was a pretty steady flow of funding from the General Assembly through ECU to us and in more recent years that has not been there to the extent that we would like for it to be. Talk a little bit about that.

Craig Quick: Well, I think in the latter years it has been cut back for everybody so I don't think we have necessarily been denied something that everybody else hasn't. It has just been some tight times in the Legislature. We changed the funding a little bit about three or four years ago as far as money coming directly for the line item in the State Government's budget that was coming to us. We changed the way that we are reimbursed which helps us out. It used to be that based upon the patients and whatever that came through the School of Medicine, there was a line item in the State budget that said so much for Pitt County Memorial Hospital. The formula was changed which was somewhat to our advantage for those patients in which we don't have to go fight for that line item every time. The line item is no longer there; it now comes to us in a different way. It was kind of a complicated formula but it was to our advantage.

Beth Nelson: I guess it is a pretty steady commitment then that we know we can count on year in and out.

Craig Quick: Yes and we don't have to go and take our stand every year and tell them okay that we want this much and that much. That has been a good thing for us and we are certainly always concerned with East Carolina and what they receive through their budget and they certainly do receive their monies through the UNC Board of Governors and that whole structure.

Beth Nelson: How did that get to be changed? That is interesting. Was it through something we initiated or something that the General Assembly saw fit to change or How did that come about?

Craig Quick: I think it was a negotiation on everybody's part to do that. The financial people with the State said why didn't we do it this way and it was agreed upon and so it was a positive thing for us and we were looking for some way because it had been always a hassle to go up and fight in Appropriations for your little piece of the pie so we welcomed the opportunity to do that. Our Legislators, our Senators and Representatives, do a grand job in standing up for East Carolina University School of Medicine, the Brody School of Medicine. Senator Warren especially has been recognized as being a champion for funds for the School of Medicine and he has got his projects that he is interested in. Stroke and heart and now diabetes, all of those bring money in to this area for the University and we certainly benefit from all of that. So, we have got some good people who know they have taken the time to learn what is going on in the School of Medicine, what is going on in the hospital, what things we need, and they are all receptive to things that will be positive and benefit the School of Medicine. It is a good relationship we have with the Legislators. They represent us well up there and as a result we have grown by leaps and bounds.

The future looks good if we can take care of our finances as we have. We have been very successful in the last several years. We have some good, smart financial people and our leadership is making good decisions. If we can take care of that, not get caught up in the Federal reimbursement crunch so that it hurts us so very much, then there is no reason we should not continue to be as successful as we are. I think it is a very bright future.

Beth Nelson: Anything else come to mind? Vignettes, stories?

Craig Quick: Well, I have kind of mixed emotions. I went last night to a retirement dinner and I was sitting with Dave and Patti McRae and I told Patti that I didn't come to this dinner last year because the year before that I really got depressed when I came to one of these retirement dinners but I was seeing folks who are retiring and I will be there before too long, I am sure. Kind of going out to pasture - some of them doing so well with how they are handling retirement. Buck Sitterson has so much stuff he is doing and he is so very happy and some of the other ones that I see are not in the best of health. You can tell that time is taking its toll on them. So, as I kind of come to the end of my career, I am looking around and seeing that I will be there soon and I wonder how I am going to react to all of this. Last night there were around 200 of them. It was interesting to see that group as it was just kind of a summation. It has been a wonderful opportunity for me and it has been a privilege to be here. I never had any idea that I would end up in a hospital, as that was not my design. I went to graduate school here and just came out and all of a sudden there was an opportunity available. The people I had the opportunity of being with have been superb and they have certainly guided me along and the good
Lord has looked after me with this opportunity at the hospital. It is a great place to work and I tell all of the orientation classes that it is a good place to be and that they have made a wise decision to come here because it has been a wonderful business to be a part of. Not just a business, I have always had kind of a good feeling that I worked for the hospital rather than XWZ Widget Co. selling widgets for certain percentage profit. It is a different business than other businesses. It really has been great!