NNMC's CEO and his family find a place to call home

Moving for a job can often be an exciting thing as new places and new faces keep boredom at bay, and discovering different cities can be fun. But it can also be hard to put down roots when constantly moving.

A casserole from a friendly neighbor can change all that.

Mark Crawford and his family are used to moving. In the last decade, Crawford has lived and worked in Oklahoma City, Pennington Gap, Va.; Lebanon, Tenn., Las Vegas and Sparks. Today, he works as chief executive officer and managing director of Northern Nevada Medical Center, and this time, he intends to stay put.

Crawford and his family lived in Las Vegas for about a year, where he worked in management of Desert Springs Hospital, which is owned, like NNMC, by Universal Health Services Inc.

Previously he'd worked for Health Management Associates and its hospitals for six years but he wearied of relocating for the company.

"There was too much moving around. I was the turnaround guy. I would just get to a place where all the hard decisions had been made, and we were starting to come back around and then it was time to leave again," he says.

Crawford, was raised in the small town of Holdenville, Okla., with its 5,000 people, itched to leave when he graduated from high school. He joined the Air Force, where he hoped to fly planes but was made a medical lab specialist instead.

He worked in medicine during his entire military career, and then put a master's degree in business administration degree to work as CEO and chief operating officer of hospitals in California, Oklahoma and Virginia.

When he tired of the moving, he interviewed for a job at a 500-bed hospital operated by Universal Health Services. During that meeting, he asked the company to think of him when a smaller hospital needed his skills. Soon, he accepted an offer to be chief operating officer at the Desert Springs hospital in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas didn't completely fit the family.

"Las Vegas is nice, but it's more sterile," Crawford says. "Our block changed hands completely in the year we were there. You just went home, drove in your garage and closed the door. It was a great experience for what it was, but I raised my hand for the Reno job when it came open."

The family had never been to the Reno-Sparks area, but Crawford did some research and liked what he saw. He took over at NNMC in August 2007, and loves running the 100-bed niche hospital. At the helm of the region's smallest of its three major hospitals, he admits it's a challenge, especially in the current economic situation.

"I love what I do. It's my responsibility to figure out how to compete in this market. It's hard to gain momentum against the two big hospitals, plus there really isn't any new business right now. We're just stealing from each other," he says.

"Northern Nevada Medical Center is plenty big for me. It's not in my DNA to run an 800-bed hospital. I don't want that," he says. "I like knowing my people. I'm still small town at the end of the day. I like the personalities. There were 1,700 doctors at Desert Springs in Vegas. Here, I feel like I know about 80 percent of the people."

Crawford also did a little reconnaissance when he moved to town. He randomly asked people he'd meet what hospital they used and was shocked when, for the first time in his career, he didn't hear a single negative word about his new employer.

And that positive feeling has extended to the city itself. His wife, Kathy, and four children, who range in age from 18 to 6, have all found Sparks and Reno to their liking.

"It's quirky but that's what is great. It's a really diverse place ... a good mix," he says. "Our neighbor brought a casserole when we moved in. I don't remember the last time that happened. We fit right into the community; it felt like home to my family immediately."

"It's the first place we've been able to call home," he says.

The well-traveled executive

Who: Mark Crawford

What: Chief executive officer and managing director, Northern Nevada Medical Center

Family: Wife, Kathy; daughter, Lauryn, 18; son Matthew, 16; daughter Paige, 8; and son Ryan, 6.

He says about Reno: "It's a nice mix of liberal Northwest attitudes and Southern hospitality."