Les Hirsch: hospital CEO brings heart to mission.

• Author: Bronikowski, Lynn

LES HIRSCH QUIETLY LOOKED ON DURING AN ORDINARY DAY IN BUSY Exempla St. Joseph Hospital while housekeeping employee Booker Woods stopped for a moment to help a group of visitors who were lost.

"Booker just stopped what he was doing and left his work area to take these people to where they needed to go," said Hirsch, who in August 2002 became president and CEO of St. Joseph Hospital. "That's an example of someone taking on the responsibility to help someone and feeling empowered to be able to do it. I just watched in the background and could see that he had a genuine caring about people, and that's the kind of thing that inspires me every day."

In his role as head of Denver's oldest private teaching hospital--founded in 1873 Hirsch believes it's important to walk the hallways and observe what's going on, meet employees and recognize when they go the extra mile.

"It's all about people and building relationships, being approachable and visible," said Hirsch, whose health-care career spans 25 years, including 14 with the Cooper Health System in Camden, N.J., where he was credited with its financial turnaround. "In my case the glass is always half full as I like to create a sense of excitement about the future and energize our organization."

Hirsch believes his inspiration for getting into health care was somewhat subliminal, stemming from a childhood marked by both his parents' being in and out of hospitals with serious illnesses.

"I loved that I could get beyond the pass system and go to all the floors," recalls Hirsch, who would go on to major in political science at William Patterson University before earning a master's degree in public administration from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

His first job out of...