Bev Sloan Denver Hospice CEO reaches expansion goal with new care center at Lowry.

• Author: Cote, Maria
• Position: EXECUTIVE EDGE - Chief executive officer

Bev Sloan is quick to answer the question she hears often when mentioning her job.

"They ask, 'How can you do it? Isn't it sad?'" says the CEO of Denver's oldest and largest hospice.

"I've been with The Denver Hospice for 11 years, and I can say honestly it's not depressing at all," she says. "It's the opposite. It's remarkably rich work because you're in contact with things that really matter."

It's even richer now that the Hospice Care Center at Lowry is open, she says. The organization has moved from a care center that's much too small for its needs to a 34,500-square-foot building Sloan describes as a work of art.

When the economy started to spiral down, she worried that her longtime goal of building the new center would have to be put on hold.

"I paused, but I had visionaries on my board, and one said, 'Co forward with your dreams,"' says Sloan, 58. "Every time I walk into the center, I pinch myself. We built a treasure."

The big surprise? In some ways, the down economy actually helped them, Sloan says.

Favorable bids for construction and good bridge financing rates helped bring costs down from an estimated $16 million to around $15 million.

Sloan, who served as chief operating officer at Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Colorado before working for The Denver Hospice, welcomed the good fortune.

While dealing with numbers is part of her job, she's most passionate about bringing peace and comfort to those facing their last stage of life. She's also involved in the emerging field of palliative care. She was a leader in the Pathways Palliative Care Program, established in 2002.

"It's so important to bring comfort to those who are being treated," she says. "They might not be ready for hospice, but they're in pain, and we need to find a way to help them. Medicine has a way of giving people false hope, and not letting people live their lives the way they'd like to in the end."

Though she studied premed, she never quite made it to medical...