PORT ANGELES — Larry Little, director of the North Olympic Discovery Marathon, will assume the executive director post of the Volunteers in Medicine of the Olympics Clinic.
He will replace departing administrator Gina Steinmetz, who will join her husband, Master Chief Petty Officer Dale Steinmetz, formerly commander of the cutter Wahoo, at his new assignment in Cape Cod, Mass.
Gina Steinmetz made the announcement Monday at the weekly luncheon meeting of the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce at the Red Lion Hotel.
Moments earlier, she had introduced John Melcher, as the new manager of the clinic, 909 Georgiana St., that serves uninsured and underinsured people.
The clinic operates in space donated by Olympic Medical Center — in return for diverting about 1,300 patients from OMC’s emergency department.
The VIMO Clinic also prevents patients in the first stages of illness from progressing to crisis levels that are more difficult and more expensive to treat.
Little has directed the marathon from an event that drew 600 runners in 2003 to a competition that this spring will draw 2,000 people.
He also anchored a three-person presentation to the chamber of commerce Monday on the importance of the Olympic Discovery Trail.
The clinic currently is closed to all but established patients until “snowbird” doctors arrive from Southwestern cities.
Volunteers in Medicine opened the facility in late summer 2006, replacing one run by Dr. Ed Hopfner and his wife, Phyllis, a registered nurse, at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.
It was known as the PAARC Clinic for its sponsor, the Port Angeles Association of Religious Communities.
