by Nick Jacobs

Part I: Life Falling Apart.
Part II: Carpet Pieces
Part III: Please, anything but hospitals!

After five years of exponential growth and State recognition, the three county, Laurel Highlands convention and visitors bureau recruited me to take over the tourism effort for the area.

A week after taking the job, the truth came out. Two of the three counties represented by the bureau had withdrawn their funding. Round three began. We were nearly broke. It took me a few months to realize the power of the 23 senators and representatives and the 15 county commissioners who were providing the funds to help support our efforts.

We hired sales representatives from the radio industry who were hungry and put them on the road. They tripled our membership base. We opened donated buildings as tourism centers in five counties. We hired employees from government-supported programs for senior citizens. We opened a convention service and went on the road with busloads of costumed volunteers representing our festivals and tourist sites. We delivered presents to every media outlet in a five State area. We began speaking nationally about the beauty of the area and produced a song about the area recorded by the Cleveland Symphony. (Pittsburgh wasn’t available.)

Within a year we had grown into one of the largest tourism agencies in Pennsylvania and within three years had created over 3500 jobs for the area.

It was in January of 1988 when job offers began to pour into my offices in Town Hall in Ligonier PA. Having just turned forty, it was clear to me that my prime income earning years were here, and my nonprofit salary was not going to easily help me get the kids through college. Oddly, within a two-week period, job offers from former board members, a U.S. Senator and a local hospital all came tumbling through my hands.

In the past few years there had been several opportunities to move to Cambridge, Massachusetts; Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; and the Hamptons on Long Island, New York. Each of these offers had been met with tears in our house from my wife and children.

My family did not, could not and would not leave. My wife was a local television celebrity and was performing as a vocalist in several groups in the area. Consequently, when the offer to head up a marketing division of a bank, be an administrator for a U.S. Senator, a broker in commercial real estate or the executive director of a to be formed hospital foundation came my way, it was a tough decision for me, but easy for her, stay here.

There was one thing that was clear to me. After having produced outstanding performing ensembles in a city that had the largest out migration of population of any city in the U.S. except East St. Louis, Missouri, I knew the taste of success. (The student population dropped from 13,000 to 3400 in ten years.) After having taken a bankrupt arts organization and moving it into one of the largest rural arts organizations east of the Mississippi, and finally, after creating 3500 jobs in only three years in tourism, failure was not going to be part of my future.

Create a new image, a new grandiose vision, recruit top notch people, and fund raise. If the dream is large enough the money does come.

As I traveled to Washington D.C. for my Senatorial interview, my wife contacted me to tell me that the local Hospital, rumored to be listed for sale in the Wall Street Journal, wanted to interview me before my D.C. interview.

It was always clear to me that a hospital was not a place that would make me happy. There was nothing about a hospital that appealed to me. They didn’t smell good. They didn’t feel good. They were not sensitive.

This would be an easy decision. Let me do anything except work in a hospital.

After spending the pre-interview night at the Washington Hilton, my phone rang, and it was a recruiter hired by the hospital who had been sent to Washington D.C. from Salem, Massachusetts. He had been sent to intercept me at breakfast prior to my interview with the Senator. His geographic center should have clearly indicated to me that there was Juju or at least witchcraft at work.

His advice was simple. Make the most outrageous demands, and you’ll be rejected for the hospital job. Little did I know that this was the way every physician negotiated with every hospital president and it just made me a more attractive candidate to the CEO. The demands included a second master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon, a certification from Harvard, a significant raise, and training to become the president of the hospital. My demands were met immediately, and the trap snapped closed on me.