NOT FOR EXTERNAL DISTRIBUTION
SOURCE: Nashville Business Journal
AUTHOR: Joel Stinnett
Senior Vice President Vic Campbell will retire from HCA in February.
PEYTON HOGE
An HCA executive who was hired when the company’s headquarters was still a three-bedroom house is calling it a career.
Senior Vice President Vic Campbell will retire from HCA Healthcare Inc. effective Feb. 29, according to a news release. He has spent 47 years at the hospital giant, joining the company four years after its founding.
Campbell's primary role at HCA has been running its government and investor relations. Former Federation of American Hospitals executive Jeff Cohen will replace Campbell as senior vice president of government relations, effective Oct. 1, according to the release.
Jeff Cohen has been named HCA senior vice president of government relations.
DANUTA OTFINOWSKI
“We thank Vic for his dedicated service to HCA Healthcare over the years, and we appreciate his many contributions to our success and growth during his time with the company,” HCA CEO Sam Hazen said in the release. “He has been a long-time colleague and exceptional representative of the organization. Over the years, he has been an invaluable counselor to the CEOs of the company. We wish him all the best in retirement.”
HCA (NYSE: HCA) is the largest hospital operator in the nation, with 185 hospitals and 123 freestanding surgery centers in 21 states. The company reported $46.6 billion of revenue for 2018, a more than $3 billion increase from 2017, making it Nashville’s largest publicly traded company, according to Nashville Business Journal research.
Campbell was hired into HCA’s finance department in 1972 and created the company’s investor relations department four years later, leading it until 2018. He was chosen to oversee HCA’s government relations team in 1997, according to the release.
Campbell served three terms as chairman of the Federation of American Hospitals, and has been active in the Nashville Sports Council, the Music City Bowl and public education nonprofit PENCIL.
In December, Campbell marker recognizing HCA’s success and 50th anniversary.
He said that when he arrived in Nashville for his interview in 1972 from Delaware, he asked the cab driver to take him to HCA’s corporate headquarters. He was surprised when his taxi stopped in front of a one-story house next to Park View, now known as TriStar Centennial Medical Center. TriStar is HCA's local health system.
“I said, ‘No, no, no, I want to go to the corporate headquarters, I don’t want to go to the hospital,’” Campbell said. “He said, ‘Son, that’s it,’ and he points at this little white house … and I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me? Have I just wasted a day to come down here?’”
As he told the NBJ for our HCA at 50 publication, he entered the tiny house and was hired for a position called the “assistant controller SEC specialist.”
Campbell eventually found his way into HCA's inner circle, building close relationships with the company’s founders: Dr. Thomas Frist Sr., Massey and Dr. Thomas Frist Jr.
HCA co-founder Jack Massey, right, with Vic Campbell, current senior vice president of HCA Healthcare, in the mid-1970s.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HCA HEALTHCARE
When he became head of the company’s investor relations, he was in charge of corralling investors to put money into the company — something Campbell said wasn’t so easy before HCA was the health care behemoth it is today.
“It was funny because in the early days with the investors, it was a challenge because they were like, ‘These guys, they speak Southern. Are they that smart?’” Campbell recalled. “We’ve sort of shown them over the years.”