Board of Trustees
Nancy J. Auer, M.D., Chair, Board of Trustees
Nancy Auer, M.D., is an emergency medical physician who has served in many roles at Swedish. Dr. Auer has been at Swedish for more than 30 years, serving in various key positions, including chief medical officer, chief of staff, medical director of Emergency Services and vice president of medical affairs. Dr. Auer retired from active practice in 2010 and now serves as a consultant on medical staff and leadership issues.
Teresa Bigelow
Teresa Bigelow has served on the Swedish Board since May 2007. She worked as an attorney specializing in health-care law for 24 years. Bigelow co-founded Bennett, Bigelow & Leedom in 1983, and served as managing partner until 1995. She founded the Safe Crossings Foundation in 1989, and served as that organization's president of the board from 1989 to 2006.
Don Brennan
Don Brennan joined the Swedish Board in 2000. He has been president and chief executive officer of St. Louis-based Ascension Health, president and chief executive officer of Daughters of Charity National Health System, president and chief executive officer of Sisters of Providence Health System, and chief executive officer of Group Health Cooperative. Brennan currently serves on the Washington Health Care Forum. Until recently, he was on the board of trustees at the Washington Health Foundation, and from 1993 to 1995 he was a member of the Washington Health Services Commission.
John Connors
John Connors joined the Swedish Board in May, 2008. He is a partner at Ignition Partners, LLC. Prior to joining Ignition, he spent 16 years at Microsoft Corporation in several strategic roles. From January 2000 to April 2005 he was senior vice president of finance and administration and chief financial officer. In this role he was responsible for managing the global finance function as well as corporate services, procurement, real estate and the company's Global Operations & Technology group. Connors is a member of the board of directors of Nike, Splunk, Korrio, Tier3, Motif Investing FiREapps, Scout Analytics, and Datasphere Technologies. In addition, he serves on the board of the Washington Policy Center; the Bellevue, Washington, Football Boosters and the University of Washington Tyee Executive Committee. Connors received his bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Montana. He also received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Montana.
Isiaah Crawford, Ph.D.
Dr. Crawford has worked in higher education for 20 years. He was appointed provost of Seattle University in July 2008. Prior to his post at Seattle University, he was a tenured professor of psychology at Loyola University Chicago and taught broadly in his field and served in several key leadership positions including chairperson of the Department of Psychology (1987-2002) and dean of the College of Arts & Sciences (2003-2008). Dr. Crawford received his bachelor's degree in psychology from St. Louis University and completed his doctoral degree in clinical psychology from DePaul University. He serves on the board directors of the American Conference of Academic Deans and is the former president of the board of directors of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago and the Clinical Psychologists Licensing & Disciplinary Board of the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation. Subsequent to his arrival at Seattle University, he has become a member of the Seattle Art Museum’s education & community engagement committee. He is a well published scholar in the areas of human sexuality and health promotion and his work has been nationally recognized with several awards, including two from the American Psychological Association.
Cheryl Gossman
Cheryl Gossman is chair of the Swedish Foundation Board of Governors. She has been on the Board since 2005. She serves on the Board Quality Committee, the Campaign Leadership Council and the Women and Children's Advisory Council. She has 15 years experience in physician practice management. Gossman has a master's degree in health-care management from George Washington University. She is also active in the Katy McKay Circle of Association for Catholic Childhood.
William W. Krippaehne Jr.
Bill Krippaehne has been on the Swedish Board since 2002. He is the former president and chief executive officer of Fisher Communications, Inc., in Seattle. Prior to that he had held other management positions at Fisher, was a stockholder partner and senior vice president at Cushman & Wakefield, and was vice president and general manager of The Gilley Company.
Louise L. Liang, M.D.
Louise L. Liang, MD speaks, writes, and consults on a broad set of healthcare issues including electronic information systems, quality, safety, service, and practice design. From 2002 to 2009, Dr. Liang served as senior vice president, quality and clinical systems support, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals which provide health care and health benefit programs to over 8.6 million patients in California, eight other states, and the District of Columbia. While there she oversaw the national quality agenda and led the implementation of the $4+ billion organization-wide electronic health record and administrative systems. This work is chronicled in Connected for Health:Using Electronic Health Records to Transform Care Delivery published in Summer 2010.
Prior to her role at Kaiser Permanente, Dr. Liang served as the chair, board of directors, Institute for Healthcare Improvement from 2000-2002. From 1997 to 2001, Dr. Liang served as the chief operating officer and medical director of Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound and the founding CEO and President of Group Health Permanente, the affiliated medical group. Previously she served as chief operating officer, Straub Clinic and Hospital, Honolulu, HI, and associate medical director, Harvard Community Health Plan, Boston, MA. In addition, she held various leadership positions in federal, public policy and administrative settings.
Dr. Liang served on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Panel of Judges during 1998 and 1999 and various other boards and committees.
Chuck Lytle
Charles Lytle has been on the Swedish Board since 2007. He is past chairman of the Swedish Foundation Board of Governors, where he has been a member since 1990. He is also on the Swedish Medical Center Campaign Leadership Council. Chuck is president of Lytle Enterprises, LLC. His background is in senior housing. He established Lytle Enterprises and Leisure Care in 1976. He is chair of the Allocations Committee for the Swedish Board of Governors and the Human Resources and Compensation Committee, as well as chairman of the Cancer Advisory Council, and he sits on the board of the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research. Chuck has served on the boards of senior housing organizations, community hospitals, health maintenance organizations, and Payless Drugs. He is also past president of the Washington State Special Olympics, past vice chairman of the Alexis de Tocqueville Society for United Way, and past vice president of PONCHO. Currently, Chuck serves as a director on the board of Performing Arts Center Eastside (PACE), which is the parent organization of Tateuchi Center, is a member of the Tateuchi Center Executive Committee, and is co-chair of the Tateuchi Center capital and endowment campaign.
Kirby McDonald
Kirby McDonald joined the Swedish Board in 1998. He founded McDonald Industries in 1970. The company was a major distributor of construction and mining machinery in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. In 1979, he founded Peak Oilfield Service Company, a major contractor providing oil field support in Alaska. In 1987, he purchased Universal Services and became chief executive officer and principal shareholder. The company provided remote site logistical support services to multinational oil, gas, exploration, production, mining and military operations worldwide. In 1984 he was a founding partner in Sundance Cruises, which provided cruise ship operations on the West Coast and in Mexico and the Caribbean. In 1989, he became a partner in Pacific Detroit Diesel, a supplier of Detroit diesel engines and related products in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. McDonald is also on the boards of Avail Media and Prepared Response.
John Nordstrom
John Nordstrom has been on the Swedish Board since 2006. He worked as an executive at Nordstrom, Inc., until his retirement.
David Olsen
Dave Olsen is the former senior vice president of culture and leadership development at Starbucks Coffee. He joined Starbucks in 1987 and is now serving in an advisory capacity. During his tenure at Starbucks he traveled the world purchasing coffee, led the Research & Development department and published a framework for action that described Starbucks’ commitment to support coffee farmers and their communities. In 1999 he took innovative steps to turn his passion for the global community into action, creating the Starbucks Corporation Social Responsibility department and establishing guidelines for the company’s global conscience. Olsen has served on the boards of CARE USA, CARE International, Pike Place Market Foundation and Starbucks Foundation.
Martin Siegel, M.D.
Martin Siegel, M.D., has been a member of the Swedish Board since 2000. He is an infectious-disease physician who has been on the Swedish staff since 1980. Dr. Siegel was medical director of epidemiology at Swedish from 1993-2005, and served as president of The Polyclinic from 2000-2004. He is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Washington. Prior to joining Swedish, he was an investigator at the Fred Hutchinson Research Center. Prior to moving to Seattle, Siegel was a clinical research investigator at the Centers for Disease Control.
Janet True
Janet True has been a member of the Swedish Board since 2005. She is also a member of the Swedish Foundation Board of Governors. True's background includes working in the U.S. Senate, the U. S. House of Representatives, and the American Enterprise Institute. On a local level, she worked in the Washington State House of Representatives as well as various political campaigns across Washington state. She is currently chair of the Seattle Repertory Theatre Board and will become president of Patrons of Northwest Civic, Cultural and Charitable Organizations (PONCHO) during 2008. She is on the advisory board of Treehouse and the Pacific Northwest Ballet. True is a founding member of the Washington Policy Center, ChangePac, and Wild Entrust International of Botswana; she continues to hold trustee positions in those organizations. She is a former trustee of Woodland Park Zoo, The Bush School, and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and has chaired the major fundraisers for the Moyer Foundation, Seniors Making Art and the 10-99 Foundation.
Chuck Watts, M.D.
Chuck Watts joined the Swedish Board in 2011. He is currently professor of medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, and executive-in-residence at the Health Management Academy. From 2001 to 2011, Dr. Watts served as chief medical officer at Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) and associate dean at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, where he directed the quality and patient safety programs and was responsible for oversight and support of the clinical programs. During that period NMH was recognized as a national leader in quality of care by the University Health System Consortium and Leapfrog, among others. Teaching activities included courses at Kellogg (Introduction to the American Healthcare System) and the masters program in patient safety.
Prior to his roles at Northwestern, Dr. Watts held similar positions at the University of Michigan: chief of clinical affairs and associate dean at the University of Michigan Medical Center. While at Michigan he was also medical director of critical care and actively involved in several multi-center critical care research projects including the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) Network and the development and implementation of APACHE, a nationally used tool for measuring severity of illness and predicting outcomes in critically ill patients.
