Joe DePew, the interim chief executive officer for Alleghany Memorial Hospital, points out the hospital's future entrance on an architectural drawing. DePew took over for Jim Yarborough, who left the post in November 2002.

DePew is hospital's interim chief officer

Alleghany Memorial Hospital's interim chief executive officer is enjoying getting to know the community, even while realizing that he is here temporarily. He's fine with that; it's part of the job.

Joe DePew became CEO at AMH Dec. 2, 2002, following the resignation of Jim Yarborough as hospital chief.

DePew is pretty much used to moving to a new locale about once a year and working on a temporary basis.

An independent contractor, he has done several other interim CEO assignments since 1995.

He contracts through Quorum, a Brentwood, Tenn.-based firm which in turn has a management contract with AMH.

"All I do is hospitals," DePew said. He used to do such assignments back-to-back, but now he and his wife Thelma enjoy spending a few months of each year at their permanent residence. That home is in Kodak, Tenn., where he is also from originally.

Thelma DePew, who is from Johnson City, Tenn., was a hospital controller before the couple married, her husband said. She assists him in part of his task, that is, making the transition a smooth one for the hospital and the new permanent CEO.

"You have to be a people person to do this," Joe DePew said, as his job involves interacting with hospital employees, physicians and the community. "It's very rewarding to get to work with new people."

He is retired from Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), where for 20 years he did much the same thing, serving as CEO at various hospitals in the United States and overseas. He got transferred about every two or three years, including to locations in Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and India.

In Saudi Arabia he assisted HCA in managing King Fasil Specialist Hospital in the mid-1970s. "There were so many different nationalities; it was like a melting pot," DePew said.

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