By Julia Cooper

Graham

If there is one thing Kenneth D. Graham knows from his 35 years of experience in health care, it’s how to play a part in hospital expansion.

“My role is to lead growth and development in a responsible and energetic way, so people can have confidence in the future,” Graham said.

The El Camino Hospital Board of Directors announced Graham as the new hospital CEO on June 28 after a six-month, nationwide search.

“El Camino has such a great reputation for clinical and medical care, and I look forward to being a part of it,” Graham said.

The 58-year-old executive will resign next month from his current post as president and CEO of Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue, Wash. Graham headed the largest expansion in Overlake’s 46-year history, transforming the building from a community hospital into a regional medical facility and increasing its size by 25 percent.

Graham’s record of growth will be useful at El Camino Hospital, according to Dr. Edward Bough, chairman of the El Camino Hospital Board.

“His construction experience will serve him particularly well as we construct a new, state-of-the-art hospital to continue the legacy of excellence at El Camino Hospital,” Bough said. The hospital’s new 460,000-square-foot main building, built in response to a state mandate requiring stricter seismic standards for hospitals, is slated for completion in July 2009.

Before Graham’s 12-year tenure at Overlake, he served as an administrator at Long Beach Community Hospital, Grossmont Hospital in the San Diego area and the Daughters of Charity National Health System, West Region. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in public health from UCLA.

Graham said he looks forward to less travel and increased family time with his new position. Graham will be living initially in Los Altos before moving to his home in Los Altos Hills. He and his wife have three children and two grandchildren.

El Camino Hospital hired the executive search firm Witt/Kieffer in January to locate and recruit the new CEO. Lee Domanico, the hospital’s previous CEO, resigned in December 2005 to head

Legacy Health System in Portland, Ore.

Continuing with the more open policy that began with last year’s disclosure of Domanico’s compensation package, hospital officials revealed Graham’s

base salary will be $543,000 annually.

Mountain View resident Bill Krepick, who has been following hospital operations closely since his wife underwent surgery at El Camino, appreciated board members’ “immediate disclosure” of Graham’s compensation. “Congratulations on finding a seasoned and highly qualified CEO,” Krepick wrote to the board.