Welcome to H&H Impact podcast where we explore leadership culture and real happenings in, in healthcare organizations and in the rural healthcare settings. My name is Charles Hall. I’m one of the principals at H&H Leadership Solutions and I have Mr. Steven Hartz, our other principal, where we’re going to explore a little bit about Steve’s background and his journey as he through the years have come to this point. Welcome Steve.

I appreciate it. Charles, Excited to be here for our third podcast. It’s, it’s still a little surreal to be recording podcast.

You know, we did it last time when we were in Miami where we had our whole setup there and we had Josh with us. Now we’re doing it from our home offices with our podcast set up. So I’m looking forward to it.

You know, this is going to be a great podcast and I’m looking forward to interviewing you the next podcast. Nice. Well, I, I think a good way to begin is just, you know, you talking a little bit about your story and how you got here.

It’s easier for somebody else to talk about you than us to talk about ourselves. So let me talk a little bit about your journey and then love to over the next, say 30, 45 minutes, kind of fill in that outline of who, who Stephen is, where he came from and kind of what his vision on moving forward is. So, you know, Steve and I go back a good number of years in healthcare where he helped place me at my last hospital as a hospital CEO.

But overall, today Steve is the President of leadership and exec. Let me try that one again. Steve is the President of Leadership and Executive Recruitment and he has delivered over 25 years of stellar experience in military service, leadership development, implementation, executive healthcare recruitment services.

He spent over 20 years in the Navy as a officer and a pilot. He’s been around the world a dozen to two dozen times. We’ll get into that a little bit.

On his amazing journey with experiences that allows him to lead various groups through high complexity and diverse challenges. He has vast experience that includes mitigation, conflict resolution, budget development, Resource management, acquisitions, personal management and integrated operations. In his previous role, Steve served as the Chief Operating Officer of Coors Leadership Capital.

And during his time there he successfully navigated through Covid and within that business stream, he was able to keep that company solid with revenues greater than 20, sorry, 200% and expanded his services for operational transformation. He is an expert in high reliability organizations where he built for the government. High reliability, a prescription for safety culture.

A system where it improves organizations safety, quality and in this case, what we’re talking about, healthcare and healthcare systems. Steve is a strong advocate for continuing education. He’s received his MBA in information technology, his Ms. In orbital mechanics, pretty impressive there.

And continues to receive certificates, Alphabet certificates, a good number of certificates on process improvement and leadership development. He’s become a fellow in 2002 of the American College of Healthcare Executives. And he is committed to empowering healthcare executives and healthcare organizations as they strive for viability and success.

There was a lot there, Steve. There was a lot there, Steve. So I’d love to know more about this journey and really tell our story about how you came to be.

How about you? You do a simpler form of a bio and just kind of tell your story and let’s just dive into it. Yeah, no, no worries. It’s always funny when you read those bios because it’s a mouthful.

I mean there’s, there’s more words in there that probably express what I’ve done than I’ve actually done. At times I feel like. Yeah, you know, I, I started my career actually in the culinary world when I got out of college.

I went and started a restaurant and a bar after graduating the Culinary Institute of America. And then, you know, after the coal bombing in 2000, I took the opportunity to join the Navy. And so I, I really consider that to be the start of my career in leadership.

I originally went to OCS to be a pilot. I did not pass my flight physical in the first couple days and I think we talked about that a little bit in the first podcast and how I got ceremoniously demoted, some might say to service warfare officer. But I will say I actually enjoyed my time on ships.

It was a phenomenal lesson to be a brand new officer in the Navy and have 45 junior enlisted guys reporting to you that are counting on you to fight for them, to give them the support they need, the requirements and the resources they need to be successful in their jobs. And then I did that job for about three years. I was on the USS Oscar Austin.

It was a DDG 79 and it was the first flight to Alpha. In the Navy. That ship did the initial deployments for Enduring Freedom when we deployed in 2003 to do all the initial taking over of vessels and ships for the Navy, doing a bunch of Strogg Transits, which is the Straits of Gibraltar, making sure everybody arrives safely into theater.

And then we jumped right into the fight. We launched about 30, 35 Tomahawks into Iraq over a two month period. We were doing a bunch of Non compliant boardings where you board vessels that don’t want to be boarded.

And I really enjoyed that whole aspect. But I knew that if I wanted to stay in the Navy, I would transition to become a helicopter pilot. I got my commanding officer to agree, so I started that process and I was literally, funny story, en route to my second ship, which was the USS Stump, a World War II era destroyer DD978.

I was headed there to be the DCA, which is a damage control officer, literally standing at the bottom of the brow getting ready to go up onto ship, when I got a call from personnel command, which is basically HR for the military, for the Navy. And they told me if I had not reported yet, that I need to report to Pensacola to start aviation training. And you know, from there I upset the ship because I wasn’t reporting.

They were counting on me. I’d already gone through the training that they paid for out of their budget and then went down to Pensacola, Florida, started flight school. And that takes about 18 to 24 months.

You go through primary training flying the, the mighty T34. I was a member of VT2, which is the Dewar Birds. And then I transitioned over to HT8, which is the eight ballers.

That was primary training for fixed wing and then helicopters, and then ultimately reported to my first duty station, which was HSE2 for training in the MH60 Sierra, which is the Navy’s version of an Army Blackhawk. And that was awesome to go through there. You’re learning how to fly your war machine and then transition to my first operational Squadron, which was HSC 28, where I did my first two aircraft deployments with them on the mighty USS Baton, which is a big deck amphib ship, and then o
the USS Wasp, which is another big deck amphibious ship.

And so that was kind of the start of my career and really takes me through my first, probably eight, nine years of service. And during that time, you know, you’re learning how to one, become a war fighter and do your job well. And then you’re learning how to take care of your junior sailors and junior officers as you progress through your ranks.

So that takes you from an ensign to a lieutenant, which in other military branches that’s 01 to 03. And during that time you really learned how to become an officer. You learned how to cut your teeth, you learn what not to do.

And there was plenty I learned not to do. You learned how to be a better leader. You learned how to manage expectations.

And yeah, that was the first half of my career. And then from there I went on to be an instructor at HSC 2 FRS instructor, teaching other junior pilots how to fly our aircraft. And so that was the first half of my career, you know.

And then as I transitioned to the second half of my career in the military, especially in the Navy as a pilot, most of us, we have what we call second jobs. I left the FRS as an instructor and Fleet Replacement Squadron is what FRS stands for, and then transitioned over to become the executive or the, sorry, the aide for Commander Naval Installations Command, which is the command that the Navy has that runs the 722 bases around the world. And I worked for a gentleman, Vice Admiral Mike Vitale.
He, as a three star, was a phenomenal leader. And the lessons I learned from him and some stories I’m sure talk about later today from our travels and seeing how things work. It was really a look behind the curtain in big government, big Navy.

And then from there I transitioned back to HSC2 or, sorry, HSC3 as I was transitioning to my department head ride. You gotta have to re qualify in your aircraft. And then I went to HSC 5 for my department head ride, finished up that opportunity, and then I left to be the OIC of Whidbey Island, Washington, which is the Navy’s search and rescue unit out of Washington state up in Whidbey Island.

And it is the nation’s number one search and rescue unit. We perform more trauma one medevacs and search and rescues than any other agency in the government. We’re there to be on call when the aircraft go down.

Thankfully, doesn’t happen very often, but we’re also there to help the civilian population when they need assistance. And then from there I transitioned back to D.C.

to finish out my last four or five years with Admiral Dan Filion as his aide working in OPNAV N10, which is the money side of people for the Navy. And then we worked N9I, which is the integration piece. We used to say we make everybody’s hopes and dreams come true in the Navy by managing the budget side of it.

And so from there I retired. And, you know, my last three years in the Navy, I used that opportunity to kind of moonlight a little bit. And that’s when I was working with Coors.

I got into executive recruitment and leadership development and developed the HRO RX program for the government. And then, you know, as I transitioned out, I continued for CORS for a few years before I ultimately met you Navy nurse and got the opportunity to work with you on your search. And then Ultimately, you and I started working on some consulting gigs and that led us to where we are today, which is H&H Leadership Solutions.

Fast forward now 25 months and we’re sitting here doing our third podcast. So a lot going on in that, that period of time over that 20, 22, 23 plus years. But it’s been a phenomenal journey and so many lessons learned that have helped me as a leader to develop the things that we’re bringing to healthcare organizations today.

That’s a pretty spectacular journey for those that are listening. And that’s only the half of it, as one would say. And so, Steve, as I’ve gotten to know you, I mean, there’s a thousand stories out there, if not so many more.

And I love to start getting into just the icing on the cake, just the big muscle movements of those journeys that who, who you’ve become today. Hey, what do you say that I might know something about your family? And I know that you come from a military family. You want to talk a little bit about that childhood journey with your dad in the military? Yeah, absolutely.

So, you know, my father was Navy. He was career Navy. He joined the Navy back in the late 60s.

You know, that was, we still had conscription back then and it wasn’t an all volunteer force. And he took the opportunity to join the Navy and came in as an intelligence officer. And then he met my mom in Omaha, Nebraska, which is where the Navy’s strategic command is for nuclear deterrence.

And I was born in Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska. Air Force? Yeah, it was an Air Force base there. But my dad was part of the Navy’s element for strategic command.

And you know, interestingly, I’ve only been back to Nebraska a few times. And what I remember most about it is the steakhouse. I think it’s called Gorats, which is a phenomenal steakhouse in Nebraska, Omaha, if you ever go there.

It’s the one that Warren Buffett likes to attend. But yeah. So from there my family moved to San Diego and you know, as a kid, I don’t remember much about it.

My brother was born in San Diego and then as the Navy often does, we transitioned. We got told that my father’s ship was being stationed over in Japan. So the stories from my mother, you know, being a 24 year old mother, she had my sister who’s a few years older than me.

She was probably six at the time, I’m two. And then my baby brother was born. So she had one on the hip and she as the Senior Navy officer’s wife at the time, other than the CO and the XO, had to help transition 27 families, military officers, families, over to Japan.

And it’s not like it is today. She talks about, you know, loading 27 families on KC130s and, you know, everybody transiting over there with their bags and, you know, in jump seats on a military aircraft to land. Is that.

That’s the families? Yeah, that was, that was the families. That’s how they relocated the families back then, like, with kids. With kids and everybody on.

On military planes transitioning over to Japan. And so this would have been like 78. Yeah, 78, 79.

And so we landed at Atugi and no housing. Were in Quonset hut barracks, which are those old World War II corrugated dome shaped buildings. You know, my dad talks about.

He was the MWR officer and used MWR funds to go buy washer and dryer so that the families were able to do laundry. It felt like you were like the first ones on the base. Well, it was.

So the base had been up and running at Atsugi, but it was, you know, they. When you’re transitioning an entire aircraft carrier to a new location, you already have the family and the aircraft carrier that’s there and they’re transitioning out. So there’s an overlap period of time.

And so you’re trying to find housing, you’re trying to get everybody set up for school. And. And you had to locate from Atsugi to Yokohama or to Yokosuka, which was the Navy base where the carrier was going to be.

And so, you know, in a new country, not speaking the language, trying to get 27 families from an air base an hour and a half south of the, the. The main base. And so, yeah, my mom talks about that logistics and getting us there.

But, you know, I, I spent two years, two and a half years in Yakuza when my dad was stationed on the Midway. I remember vividly going up on the ship and, you know, back then everybody smoked on ships. You know, we’re talking late 70s.

And I distinctly remember my father opening up the hatch to the officer’s deck where we were going to have dinner with him one night when he was on duty. And like, just this, the billow of gray smoke coming out of the ship. And then my father being like, don’t touch the walls because, like, the nicotine on the walls was thick, you know, and so you get into the wardroom.

But back then, I mean, everybody grew up in a car where their parents were smoking and, you know, it’s just. That was the way we grew up. So is.

Is that done today? I mean, can you bring your families into officer dining on ships? Yeah, absolutely. You know, especially if you’re on duty, you can bring them up there. But they do events on occasion where they’ll bring families on and allow them to dine.

No smoking on ships anymore. That kind of went away, I would say, in the 90s. But it was.

It was awesome to be able to go on there and be a part of that. And then the other thing that was unique about Yokosco is, you know, at this time, I’m five to seven years old. You know, Japan was a phenomenal place to grow up.

There was next to no crime. And my mother talks about when we actually got into our townhouse on base, you have neighborhood get togethers. And myself and another young girl decided to go on a walk.

And we walked off the base because back then you did not have the same fence line and security. So we walk off the base and apparently they put out a search party, couldn’t find us. I reached out to the.

The liaison for this. Was this your first young romance? Probably my first young romance. But, you know, my mom talks about the fact that I was located in a military or in a police precinct out in town, sitting on, I guess, the sergeant’s desk.

You were how old hat? Five. There it is. There it is.

Yeah. Sitting out there eating osembe crackers, the Japanese kind of crackers, with this little girl. And our parents are like, what were you doing? We’re like, oh, we just went for a walk, you know, but, you know, back then you could, you could do that, especially in Japan.

Like, you know, it was just amazing that everybody treated with such respect and, you know, everybody was willing to help you. But, you know, as a five and six year old, I’d get on my bike and I would run the base. My friends and I, we’d ride all over the base.

It was an old World War II base. There were all these caves and places you can kind of sneak into. And, you know, it was awesome, awesome being raised there.

And then from there we moved down to Atsugi, where my dad worked for a organization called kmsa, which was doing intelligence, Cold War intelligence against the Russians. And we lived on that base, which was, you know, from six to nine years old, running the base, taking it over. My best friend’s father was the commanding officer of the base.

So, you know, I distinctly remember being 8 years old, and we took one of the golf carts when we shouldn’t have. And the CEO’s golf cart? Yeah, it was a golf cart from the golf base, but it was his golf cart. Yeah.

So his son and I, we took it and we try to jump a little ravine. We didn’t make it. Got in trouble.

I mean, it was. You know, in the military, they call kids who are military race, we call them brats. We would say, born ready, always transfer.

But no, there were periods where we were just brats. I mean, we, we ran that base like we owned it. But it was a great childhood growing up there.

Got the opportunity to travel to the Philippines. We did six months in the Philippines where we lived there, Taiwan, all over Japan. Little known fact, I actually used to model.

Yeah, so funny, funny story. There’s an image. And was it a, was it a hand, foot or ballet model? No, no, this was in, in Japan, they love, you know, the gaijings.

The. The. The little white kids.

And I had blonde hair and blue eyes. And so you would. Little kids, before you lost your teeth would be in, you know, I was in Toyota and Fujifilm and all these little modeling things as a little kid.

And they love having the American children over there, especially American military kids. And so I got to do that for a little bit, which was awesome. You know, it was, it was just a.

It was a unique experience. And then, so coming back to the United States when my dad was finishing up his tours at Office Naval intelligence in Washington, D.C.

that was really my first remembering of coming to the United States, because when I was really young, I didn’t remember much. So I remember going into third grade and coming to the US and I guess this was 85. And yeah, you know, then that was awesome being raised there.

And then, you know, my dad finished out his career 88, 89, and then transitioned over to what we call the Beltway bandits, which are all the defense contractors. And yeah, it was pivotal in my growth because I got to see how officers treat their junior enlisted, how military spouses. My mom, she used to host all these events for officers and officer families, and it was awesome to be a part of that growing up.

And growing up overseas was just a phenomenal experience which leads to not all military brats. Think about, hey, when I grew up, I want to be in the military? Was, was that your story or did you. Did you say, hey, listen, I, I love what I see.

This is always what I wanted to do. And you joined the military right out of high school. The traditional thought, what was your journey? No, you know, funny, I I had no intention of joining the military.

You know, it was post Cold War, when I was in high school. The Iraq war kicked off, Gulf War one kicked off, but then it was kind of dying down. And then under the Clinton administration we were reducing military.

So I really never had that desire. It was like, you know, I don’t want to be part of a Cold War, just training to just sit there. And so I, you know, went to college to play football.

And then while I was there, you know, I did another thing, you know, ultimately to get a degree. That should be why you go to college. It wasn’t the reason I went, but I ended up with a degree in finance.

And then because of my red shirt year, I did a second degree. I got a degree in hotel restaurant management. And a lot of that degree was based on my.

I’d been working in restaurants and culinary side for, since I was probably 14, 15. And so they gave me the opportunity to teach a couple classes in my senior year and ultimately get that second degree. And from there I went to culinary school at Culinary Institute of America and worked in several big restaurants, high profile restaurants with some, you know, world famous chefs and, and I thought that’s what I wanted to do.

I’ve always had the entrepreneurial spirit. So opening up my own bar called the Library Cafe and night spot in Blacksburg did that for about two years. And then I realized I don’t like running a restaurant with a bunch of 18 year olds that have to report to me at 23.

Well, I can tell you that doesn’t look appetizing. If you look from a distance, great food tastes amazing. Except that the hours that you cook the food is the worst hours around.

You’re home by 12 in the morning, you don’t get much time off and you’re actually in a. I wouldn’t call it a full sweat house, but over those stoves and ovens, that doesn’t sound appealing to me. Well, you know, I think for some people, that isn’t for me.

What I loved about it was the amount of speed that happens in a restaurant, you know, so like from that 4 o’ clock to like 9 o’ clock time, it is non stop. And I love that it’s a dopamine rush of having to meet the needs to get people what they want, provide phenomenal food. And when I owned my own restaurant, I did a fine fine dining style.

So I had built it so it was fine dining during the evening time. But around 10 o’ clock we would take the white tablecloths off, and it would turn into a nice bar. And so with that, we were able to kind of dive into the college aspects of what people like, which is the bar, the drinks, and all that.

But, you know, I. When I built this to give you a sense of my entrepreneurial side, I didn’t do everything myself. I reached out to the college because of my relationships there. And I got the engineering department to develop our H VAC system.

I worked with the architectural school there to have students, as a project, design the inside of it. And so this library cafe and nightspot, there were no straight angles. Everything was a weird angle.

Every door was a weird shape. Our bar wasn’t straight. It was all curved and waved.

And it was made out of metal and copper. And so, you know, I utilized my relationships with the college to have different departments within the college get their students design it. So the art guys came and built this copper bar.

Oh, yeah, it was phenomenal. And so it was. It was truly my.

How do you build a program utilizing and leveraging your relationships and your connections? But the students loved it because this was a place they were going to all the time. I mean, we did things like the art kids developed. I said, hey, I don’t want a regular toilet.

I want something that’s really unique, that’s going to be something kind of cool. Did you. Did you have to pay for all of the.

The supplies or that just came from the college? So I paid for the material, but they provided all the labor and the construction side of it. So, like, I bought the H VAC unit, but they built the actual plan. They built the water sprinkler system plan.

They built the lighting plan. The art students designed our toilets. So we took old kegs, and they built urinals for the men’s bathroom out of the kegs that were functioning, you know, and it was like.

It was just. It was meant to be something completely different. But the other thing is, is, like, I had the concept of the library cafe.

And on our credit card machine, when you would run our credit card slips, it would come up as VT Library. So you’d get parents that would call our number and be like, my son had $280. And I’m like, oh, you must have had a lot of fines.

Nice. 280 in fines. I’m like, hey, this is the library, you know, and, like, all our drinks were based after, like, you know, so there was.

So there was a reputation, is what I’m hearing, in on the campus and around the community. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I mean, it was. It was grown and it was. It was a great idea and, and it was.

It was fun to be in that part. But again, when you’re 23 years old, I love the cooking side because that’s my passion. That’s.

That’s my outlet. I. I’ve always loved that, the running of it and running 18 year olds and everybody wanting to give their friends free drinks and doing all that type of stuff. That was the piece that I didn’t enjoy running it.

And so ultimately, when the Cole bombing happened and I was frustrated and might have had a little bit to drink the night before, I decided to go to the Navy recruiter. And that’s. That’s kind of how I ended up in the military.

And I. I didn’t even go into the Navy side. I went in to be a Marine, but they couldn’t get me there fast enough. And so the Navy guy was like, hey, I can have you there in two weeks.

And I was like, giddy up, let’s go. Lights on. Well, is that the same? Is that.

So where. I’m probably looking at your timeline of going. Did you try to open up a business and then go to school, or did you go to school then open up a business? I went to school and then I opened up my business in the last.

Last year while I was in school. So while I was working on my degree in hotel restaurant management, which I had a lot of credits. So basically they said if you teach this class and you do a will give you the degree.

And so part of my investors in my restaurant were actually two of the professors I had in the hotel restaurant management school. And then some of the guys that I played football with and, and some other family friends and some fraternity brothers. And so I kind of all did it at the same time, you know, and I. I blame.

So, you know, I. I have adhd, and so I kind of blame a lot of this on that. No. Yeah.

No. Hey. I like to have a million things going on at once.

Touch, touch, feel, feel. Go, go, go. Yes.

Yeah. And so, you know, but worked out, you know, it’s. I think of everything that I’ve done in my career.

My life is. It’s been a journey and something that helped me out, you know, like my culinary skills is a great example. Like, when I left, I didn’t know if I was ever going to cook again.

But when I get on the ship, I used to love to go down to the ship and cook with the crew on Sundays for the crew. You know, the Ship has great. The mess stewards, they’re called mess stewards.

And that switched to culinary specialist css. Those are great guys, but they don’t get a lot of culinary training. And they have these menu cards they had to follow.

And I remember going down there one time and, you know, it’s pretty bland food. And I talked to our CO and he’s like, yeah, help yourself. And so I went down there and worked with the chief and I would get in there teaching the guys different techniques, teaching them how to season and make the food taste better.

And, you know, we. We crushed it. Our, our culinary team did a phenomenal job and we always had great marks from the guys on the ship.

Here’s a. Here’s another interesting story. So I had a place called the Boathouse in Cincinnati that I had known prior to going into service called Montgomery Inn.

And they have the best barbecue sauce I’ve ever had. I love it. So I’m sitting out in the Persian Gulf, this is April of 2003, and I reached out to Dean, who was the owner of the company at the time, and I said, hey, I want to do something special for Easter.

I was like, is there any chance you can send me a couple bottles of your barbecue sauce and I’m gonna, I’m gonna use it out here on the ship. I get this email back, and this is email at the time, which was so slow. He said, absolutely.

So, like, fast forward two weeks. I get this call from supply officer who’s like, hey, get down to the supply office now. We got this package here.

We don’t know what to do with it. And I get down there and it is 20 gallons of barbecue sauce. He didn’t send me a case or a box of bottles.

He sent me five gallon buckets of barbecue sauce and he sent four of them. And so we put together the best barbecue that you had. And keep in mind, this is like less than a month into the war.

And we’re out there on Sunday having a steel beach picnic, which is. We do this on occasion where, hey, we have a relatively low work day. And so we’ll set everything up out on the back fan tail of the ship and we’ll grill out.

And so we did barbecue chicken and pulled pork, and it was awesome. We had a phenomenal, phenomenal Easter barbecue that day with 20 gallons of Montgomery and barbecue sauce. Those little things on the ship are phenomenal.

When you have something like that, that, that. Okay, so you. So you connected the.

So one period of time to your other with college but you also, during college, not only school, build your own business. You played football. I did.

I did. I played football for Virginia Tech and was a tight end and it was a great experience. You know, I, I went to college hoping that it would be.

Football would be the end all to be all. And I was going to love it. But you know what? I got to college.

Being a Division 1 athlete is different. My primary responsibility was playing sports. Education felt second.

You know, that’s not, they would, nobody would ever tell you that, but that’s how it felt to me. You’re spending 30, 40 hours a week doing football and, you know, we had an awesome program. We went to our first BCS bowl game, the Sugar bowl, and then ultimately we went to the Orange bowl.

And then in 99, we went to the national championship. I got to play with guys like Michael Vick and just, you know, phenomenal athletes in college. And I, I appreciate the experience, but I also know that it wasn’t for me.

I, I fell out of love with football early in my college career. Well, was it partially because it was a D1 program that they owned you? Didn’t they own you? Yes, that I would say that is exactly right. They absolutely owned us.

You know, they, I mean, when you get there, it’s not only practice, but then it’s weight room and then it’s video time and then it’s, it’s mandatory study hall. And so there’s really not a lot of free time. And I don’t think a lot of people realize that when you’re playing football.

You know, there are tons of varsity sports in college. Football is a little different because it is fully year round and even when you’re not in the football season, you’re in training mode and then you have spring practice and everything you do is around your football schedule. Your class schedules are built around your training schedule.

And again, I wouldn’t change the experience. But, you know, when I finished playing football, my college roommate introduced me to rugby. And I’ll tell you, when I started playing rugby, that was a sport I fell in love with.

I played rugby for, through the end of my college career, all through the Navy, and it was hands down the greatest sport I ever played. The camaraderie, playing offense and defense, it was just. That was a truly phenomenal experience playing that.

And. But yeah, again, I go back to my add. You know, I played football, played rugby, did a little stint, lacrosse, helped coach women’s lacrosse in College for two seasons.

I always had to be doing 10 things and none of them perfect, but had a lot of fun doing them. Okay, so the reality is, is you’ve had a thousand chapters, no doubt in your life, and so let me add another chapter to your life. You’re a dad and you’re a husband, aren’t you? Yeah, yeah, I have married to my wife Sandra, who is my rock.

She is my everything. And then we have three amazing kids. Our daughter, Maria Pala, she’s our oldest at 27.

A son, Stephen Steven Jr. He’s turning 18 in a couple months. And then Luciano is our youngest. He’s our wildcat at 10 years old.

And so we, you know, Sandra and I are hers, mine and ours. You know, we blended our family when we got married and we are just about to hit our 14 year marker. We just went over our 14 years together and it’s, it’s been awesome.

Well, I’ve got to experience your family from being an amazing husband to a phenomenal father. I’ve met and spent time with each one of your kids and personalities galore and driven. Driven like no other.

So your effects as dad and a husband is to be revered as well as to be admired. So in this journey of family, because we connected a little bit about your foundation of being a military family with your dad in. Well, you also are a military family with Sandra and the kids, correct? Yeah.

You know, Sandra and the kids have been part of me in the latter part of my career in the military. And so they’ve had the opportunity to kind of be part of me when I was at Whidbey island with the search and rescue unit and then my time in the Pentagon and, you know, of, of my children. I think Luciano is the one who’s most excited about the military.

He, he’s at that age where he loves the idea of flying, he loves the idea of, you know, shooting guns and all the stuff that, you know, 10 year old little boys want to learn how to do when they get older. And yeah, it’s, you know, my, my transition from military to civilian life wouldn’t have gone as smoothly if I didn’t have the support of them. And again, a huge part of that goes to Sander because, you know, that transitions, it’s challenging.

You don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know what it’s going to be like, how you’re going to respond and react. Some people do it amazingly well.

Other people struggle mightily. And I think I was able to get through it very well because of doing a little moonlighting as I was getting out, and then my wife and family support as I made that transition. Oh, that’s spectacular.

And so they continued after the military in traveling around the world. You did that in the military. You did quite a bit of traveling, and then you brought your family with you even during the military.

And after the military, still travel. So you’re a world traveler still. Can you talk a little bit about just making the loop with and without the family? Yeah.

You know, in the military, I had the opportunity to go around the world a couple times. You know, I think I’ve been in, like, 120, 125 countries and on every continent except Antarctica, which is. It’s on my bucket list to do with one of my buddies.

That’s his. One of his. Well, yeah, I think that’d be awesome to go fishing down there.

But it’s, you know, it’s a challenge. You fly down to Chile, and then you got to take a puddle jumper over to Antarctica. But it would just be cool to say, you check the box.

Yeah. You know, I think with the military is one way to do it, because, you know, when you get off the boat and you’re on liberty, you go and see things. MWR does a phenomenal job.

Morale, welfare, and recreation does a phenomenal job of setting up trips and stuff. But when I went with my family, you know, we have been to Europe several times, been down to South America and Colombia a couple times in Mexico, and, you know, Sandra and Luciano, that’s who lives in the house today. We travel all the time together, and there’s always that willingness to try any food, go any location.

It’s the half of the desire to go to 20 countries when you’re over there just because you’re there, but also enjoy everything. I think our favorite place right now is Paris. We truly enjoy Paris.

We enjoy the food, the culture. The people have been extremely kind to us. What’s the best time of year to go to Paris? September.

I think that’s September to October, where you’re getting into the fall season. Most of the tourists from the summertime are out by then. Kids are back in school.

The temperature is nice and cool, and it’s just a beautiful time to go there. You start to see the changing of the colors. Spring is also a great time.

If you’re looking at that April to May time frame. Everything comes to life. All the flowers are blooming.

But I truly enjoy the countries of Italy and France. Italy has a saying, dolce de vita, the sweetness of life. There is a slower pace of life.

And you sit there and take the time to enjoy your cappuccinos and your espressos, and it’s just. It’s a very beautiful place to be. And you think about, like, our culture.

We’re getting ready to celebrate our 250th anniversary of the United States. Right? We hit that next year, and the Navy. Here we are.

Oh, yes. This year was 250 for the Navy just recently, in October, the country celebrates their 250th next year in 26. But you go over there and it’s like, you know, they’re celebrating thousands, 2,000 years worth of history.

And you’ll look at buildings or you’ll look at art that’s. It’s older than our country is, and it’s just amazing to see the way people live over there. It’s.

It’s a beautiful place. It’s a great place to visit. No place like America, gotta admit.

You know, for those, you know, you and I have traveled extensively throughout the US and whether you’re in Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, the mountains, or down in the coastline of Conway, South Carolina, no place like the United States, that’s for certain. Nice. And so all of that journey, and now you left the military, you’re raising.

Raising some kids, and we’re making that transition, that transition from that really structured way of life and to a. To more of a civilian way of life. What was that transition like? I think the transition was pretty good.

I think the challenge for me was, you know, you. You walk away from the stability of the military, where, you know, where you’re supposed to be every day. You have your uniform, you have a very defined process that you go through every day for work, right? And then you get into the civilian sector.

Now you get to pick your own clothes. Especially when you work for yourself, you got to manage your time, and you got to really stay focused. And so it was a little bit of a transition.

But I think where I was in my career in the military, I knew I was ready to go. I did everything I felt I could accomplish there. I think the Navy was happy with what I did, and they were ready to see me go, and so I was ready to make that transition.

So for me, it was very easy. I’ve worked with a lot of people transitioning out. Those have been in for 30, 35 years.

Some of them struggle a little more because all they’ve ever known is the military, and they don’t necessarily know what they want to do when they grow up. And. And I say grove I E from the service, but I think I had a great, again, a great support system.

I was, I already had a job lined up working with Coors, and I was, I was ready to go. I was in the right place and right mindset to. To take on the next steps.

So you did take on aspects of your military into your civilian life. You’re still a pilot, aren’t you? I am. I’m still a civilian pilot.

I have my private, my commercial rating, my instrument rating, and I am a CFI double I, which is a certified flight instructor in both fixed wing and rotary wing. I don’t get to utilize it as much as I would like to. Probably, you know, maybe 100 hours a year that I’m getting to utilize it.

I would fly every day if I could, but that’s not my primary responsibility. But it is. It’s fun.

It’s fun to be up there. It’s fun to teach people the joys of flying. And, you know, my, my future instructor students that I’m looking to really teach or my, my boys.

I’m. I’m super excited to be able to teach them about piloting and, and you know what, that could open up for them in the future. That’s impressive.

And I, I’ve flown with you, but not as a. You being a pilot, per se. And I think I’ve seen you up in the air a few times over Washington state as you’ve gotten some mil several years.

It’s been very impressive to see. So that’s a great asset that you have and something that you bring to the table. And then just maybe owning a plane might be in your future.

Is that not right? Well, that’s what we like to. If the company continues to do well, and thankfully to IRS Law 179, where you can take full depreciation in a plane, I would love to own a plane through the company. It would certainly save the hours and hours and hours we spend at airports waiting for security and everything else.

But, yeah, I’d love to have that someday. Well, let me do this transition over to healthcare. Why healthcare? I think, you know, when I got Into Healthcare in 2017, when my mom needed some help with her company at Coors, I got into it.

I started doing a little bit of recruitment, some business development, some coaching for a board down in Tahoka, Texas, in Linn county, was helping their board through some transition times. And I really fell in love with it. I fell in love with being able to help people and leaders understand the value they can bring to an organization.

I thought it was really awesome to help them with the leadership development side because a lot of them, I found that they had been promoted. Hey, you were a great rad tech. Now you’re director of radiology, but nobody’s ever talked to you about budgets and leaderships and crucial conversations and things like that.

And so being able to help them become well rounded leaders was really good. And so my last three years of the Navy, I was kind of moonlighting and, and doing that and I found I had a knack for was awesome. To help support hospitals and health systems big to small.

I had done recruitment and leadership development for, you know, UVA and Johns Hopkins and UT Southwest, down to these small hospitals in Toca, Texas and Hobbs, New Mexico. And I started getting to know the people. You know, healthcare, like anything else, it’s a microcosm and, and you know, it seems big, but once you start to get to know everybody, it’s really not that big.

And then ultimately dove into that side of it and found that there was a niche there. And I really, it took off. I seemed to resonate with the people I was working with.

And as I retired from the Navy, I was like, this is another way to serve. You know, helping hospitals and health systems to be the best they can be, to provide great quality patient care for their communities was something that really resonated and that kind of transitioned me into that critical access, rural health care, where I was like, man, there’s a real need here because a lot of them don’t get the support or have access to consultants like you and I because they’re hard to get to or p
may not necessarily know about them. And when you and I started working together and we had that opportunity in Alaska, things just started to come together and it was like one after another, we saw the need, we saw the opportunity.

And that ultimately led to us to, you know, you and I developing the H&H leadership solutions and the system that you and I use for hospitals and health systems. Did you, did you always want to own your own business? I think so. You know, since I was, I don’t know, probably nine years old, I was a kid walking around with my red Rider wagon with, you know, stuff to go wash our neighbors cars and wax their cars and, you know, cut grass and do all that type of stuff.
So I’d always been that one who was looking to raise money. I liked owning my own dollars. I liked my effort directly related to the money that I had in my pocket.

You know, it wasn’t that Way in the Navy. In the Navy, you get to a point where it doesn’t really matter how hard you work, you’ll promote, but then you gotta wait in line for the next opportunity. And there’s a lot of luck and timing involved where in your own business, you really make or break yourself by how much you want to work.

The effort you put in. There’s a little bit of luck to it, certainly, but I knew that I liked that aspect of it. And I think the other thing, you know, when we started H&H, I knew I wanted to start my own company.

I was looking at potentially buying my mother’s company. But I also know that I have weaknesses, as everybody does. And then when you and I started working together, it felt like we were ticking and tacking really well together.

You know, we. We kind of balance each other out. You’re more dot the I’s across the T’s person.

I was more on the sales side of it. And when we started bringing those things together, it just seemed that it was working very well for. For us, and that just solidified it for me.

Yeah, it’s been a pretty phenomenal journey, I’ll say, from my end toward you, as we’re really just trying to explore who you are and how you became who you are in healthcare leadership. And really, we don’t just touch healthcare. That’s probably what we do as a business theme.

Our leadership fingerprints, yours actually extend far past just healthcare itself. But I’ve enjoyed our time together. I think my first true memory of you was on a rooftop of a restaurant drinking a bourbon and learning a little bit about your journey and learning about my journey.

And I was still kind of directly in healthcare operations as a hospital CEO. And I think I had no idea about healthcare consulting. I had no idea about recruitment when it comes to, you know, consulting and how to move forward.

And I think I’ve learned so much about how we organize ourselves outside of healthcare to help healthcare from you. It’s been a tremendous opportunity to understand pieces of what I’m not in you as we build this really impactful company. I know we’ve been at this for a little bit.

I’d love to have you just kind of reflect on your journey in HH and maybe some of the services that we offer that you really lead and that you. That connection with communities and boards and executives and CEOs, and, you know, what does that all mean to you now that we say we’re two years in, but I would say that we’re more like four Years in because we did the proof of concept for a few years. When you reflect on all this, what are you thinking? Where are we going? What’s your thoughts on a vision that you can see us embracing? Yeah, well, I appreciate that.

I think I first look at H&H leadership solutions and what we’re developing and creating between you and I, as a culmination of our histories and the work that we’ve done through the Navy. I mean, even back to playing football, the lessons you learn from being on a team and working with people, even when you disagree with them, to your experience in healthcare has kind of brought us full circle into what we have today. And you know, the divisions that I work on, you know, executive r
is really the people side of it where whether it’s the C suites, the directors or providers being able to make sure that we find the right talent at the right time for the organization.

And I think what sets us apart from others in the recruitment field is that, you know, first and foremost, we’re about the culture of your organization. It’s got to be the right fit. We’re not about putting a body in the seat.

And that’s why we’re willing to back our recruitment jobs with a 36 month guarantee for C suite, which is better than any guarantee in the industry on anybody. There is no other person in the industry, in any industry that gives that guarantee on a C suite. And part of it is because on average C suite replace every 18 to 24 months in a healthcare system.

The other is the director levels, you know, finding those up and comers. You know, a great example is Cascade Medical Center. We placed two brand new directors that we got to work with and coach in that organization from basically infancy of directorship to where they are today.

And they’re doing exceedingly well. And I think that’s a huge piece of what we do. And then the provider side is finding the right providers.

Providers are expensive. Replacing a family practice provider can cost your organization a million dollars in lost productivity, recruitment costs, lost time, quality issues. And so finding the right one matters.

You know, I look at our time example with Melissa Memorial and Mike Castle. This is a quick story on the recruitment. You know, Mike Hassell and Melissa Memorial in Holyoke, Colorado have been a client of ours for the last several years.

A cornerstone, kind of a cornerstone client. Yeah, they were the very first ones that signed with us. And you know, Mike’s a great example because Mike was actually a candidate of mine for another CEO position up in Montana.

And you know, I met with Mike in person in Atlanta. And then, you know, he made it to the final slate and ultimately wasn’t the selected candidate. Mike got picked up for a job through another search firm for Holyoke.

And Mike liked our process so much that he followed up with us and said, hey, I have some opportunities for interim. I also would really love to see what you guys can do on leadership and how you can help us be the best hospital we can. And so, you know, over the last several years we’ve been working with Melissa on developing their leaders through the cohort training program, bringing on interims, people like Mary Beth Olson who came in as an interim and then ultimately stayed on in t
organization to help them get to the successes they have.

And so that’s an example of how like recruitment led into leadership, which has led into so many more things with that organization. And I just mentioned the cohort program. That’s one of our signature programs in leadership.

You know, with the leadership program we do everything from board governance, which you have been instrumental on with this organization with Melissa, down to one on one coaching. But Melissa has been using us for their cohort program where we took 11 individuals over a 12 month period and helping them to be the best leaders they can be. So everything from Leadership 101, teaching them that crucial conversation ethics, the assessments and evaluations of themselves on how to be b
communicators, to the one on one coaching on helping them with individual challenges to, you know, next week they’re finishing up their capstone project and the cohort was broken into three groups and their capstone projects are on community engagement.

Their one project is on rev cycle management and improvement and then the third is on service line implementation, implementation. And to see these groups work together for the last four months to develop a 40 page white paper and you know, a 45 minute presentation to sell to the board and leadership on, hey, these are the projects that we feel are most important to our organization. And here are some solutions.

And these projects, I can see all three of them being implemented by the organization to help them get better, stronger, faster, provide better care for their community. You know, we still are discovering how we can help organizations. And with Melissa Memorial and Mike Castle and his team, there’s a traditional thing out there called leadership development Institute.

I think we have our own spin on that. And so we’ve where we go out and we really lead leadership quarterly, including team building. How about you touch a little bit about those type of team building activities and those quarterly quarterly leadership investments that H&H works closely partnerships with these healthcare facilities to do? Well, I think, you know, like those leadership institutes, every organization has their challenge.

You know, if I sit there and say your challenge in your organization is probably accountability, it’s staffing and it’s rev cycle, well, I probably just represented 90% of healthcare across the nation, from large systems to small systems. And so when we go in and do these quarterly trainings, we work with the organization to understand what their biggest challenges are today and then try to solve that problem for them or help them understand how to solve that problem. And so a great example, w
did a quarterly training up in Edgerton, Wisconsin for Edgerton Hospital with Mark Augsberger and his team.

And the training that we did was focused on actually going to a gun range and teaching gun safety and teaching the team how to shoot weapons. But the focus of the training was really on attention to detail. Right.

So if you’re going to shoot a weapon or you’re learning how to fire a rifle or, you know, clay shooting or whatever, the amount of attention to detail you have to have in every step of the process is essential to make sure that it’s done well, it’s done accurately, and it’s done safely. Well, that same discussion was able to resonate through the hospital because again, it’s that attention to detail. Every interaction with the patient from registration all the way to the end of care, there is s
much attention to detail in every aspect.

Charting properly, registration properly, making sure their medications are correct, all those little pieces. And. And we were able to tie that all in in a fun training session that really seemed to resonate with the community or resonate with the hospital and their leadership team.

Well, those were really good times and very unique ways to do team building. Very enjoyed that session that we put on and learned quite a bit about connecting the dots on how crazy things as how healthcare matters and knowing your business and every detail accounts. I’m a clinician by training, and so details matter, and the wrong details can harm or hurt a patient.

And so to be able to transition that to a gun range for healthcare leaders and how everybody embraced it, it was really, really impressive to see. I agree. You know, I think that’s the fun part of what we do is, you know, in most of our organizations, we go in and we’re more than just a consulting firm or more than just a recruiter.

You know, we really work to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. We get to know them. The assessment, we use the trimetrics eq, many of them have taken it.

So you get an understanding of their communication styles, what motivates and manages them, all those different aspects. And I think that’s a huge piece of our success as we work with these organizations because, you know, you gotta be more than just a body. You gotta show that this is more than just a dollar or another contract.

But we really care about them, care about their families. We’ve had the opportunity to, you know, Mark’s a great example. We’ve had the opportunity to have dinner with Mark and his wife and her daughter.

And it’s awesome to be a part of it. Yeah, no doubt. I think when we reflect, how do we differentiate ourselves from other consultants or other advisors? And I would imagine every one of our teams would say the same thing.

We actually integrate ourselves as part of their team. And whether it’s Saturday afternoon or Wednesday night, 2am or 2pm, we take calls, we sometimes send calls to really make sure that they are supported in everything that they’re doing. And that together, no doubt, they’re able to achieve so much more in this journey.

So it’s been a pretty awesome thing that I couldn’t even dreamed up about the impact that we’ve had in the collaboration, the shoulder to shoulder work that we do with our people, with our teams, with our clients. No, absolutely. I think it’s.

There’s so much that goes into it and everything. And I’m looking forward to what we have coming in the coming years as we continue to grow our organization, our client base, our team. I think there’s a lot lessons learned in the last two years and I’m looking forward to implementing those lessons in the coming year as we continue to get to our next level and help our clients get to where they want to be.

Well, I think something that we didn’t share with our audience is tomorrow is Thanksgiving. And so as we’re all getting prepared for the holidays, maybe a little bit of reflection on being what’s grateful for Steve. You know, the partnership that we have and the journey that we’ve gone on together and the impact that we’ve had over the last several years of, it’s been amazing.

I couldn’t have dreamed of it. And we are coast to coast and enjoying every moment. And so probably as we work to kind of close this episode out, I’ll take that first effort and Steve can close it out.

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. I know this will be released after Thanksgiving, but we’re grateful for not only our audience, but for our team and our clients and really rewarding feeling to have the impact that we’re having sustaining healthcare many times in the rural environment. Yeah, I think about all the things to be grateful for.

I think about our partnership, our families, obviously, and our clients. I think, you know, we couldn’t do what we do without their support and the opportunity they provided for us. And we have a lot coming up in the next, I guess, five weeks until the end of the year.

And there’s a lot to be thankful for and it’s. It’s just awesome, man. And I truly appreciate your partnership.

You know, it’s been a phenomenal journey and for your family, my family, it’s a lot more to come and we’ll just keep on going forward and. And I appreciate the opportunity to be interviewed by you at this podcast and I’m looking forward to our next one where I get to interview you. It’s going to be awesome.

Good stuff. Well, thank you everybody for joining us. We are in our third now entering our fourth podcast and really want to have.

The purpose of this podcast is to share some of our lessons and our journey and our hopes are that somewhere along the way that some of these lessons can easily be applied to your world within healthcare itself. Hey Steve, thanks for my goodness opening up and sharing about the journey. No doubt that there’s another thousand chapters that you had that we didn’t even touch.

And over time, I bet you we get into more of those fun stories that you have. Absolutely, Charles. Thank you everybody for listening to H&H Impact podcast.

I will certainly get into more of our stories as we. As we develop more of our podcast. Every.

Everyone have a great Happy Thanksgiving. Well, I guess by the time they get this, it’ll be after Thanksgiving, but have a happy holidays and again, thank you for everything, Charles. Hey, God bless.

Sam. Sa.