Port Angeles School District’s new information technology director is also the newest Olympic Medical Center commissioner.
Gary R. Smith, 61 and the hospital’s former chief information officer, was selected in open session from a field of seven applicants, after the hospital board met in closed session last week, then reconvened in public to make the 4-1 decision.
Smith, who was selected the same week he was named the school district’s top computer chief, will fill the seat vacated by Mike Kilpatrick, who resigned July 31 because he was moving to Arlington.
Smith will fill the position until an election is held to fill the rest of Kilpatrick’s term.
The election to fill the position will be Nov. 5, 2005.
Board Secretary Harlan Knudson was the lone board member not to vote for Smith. He voted for another board applicant, juvenile defense attorney Susan M.B. Hayden.
Top three finalists
Smith, Hayden and adult development researcher Barbara Mason were the top three finalists after the board interviewed all seven applicants Wednesday night.
The other applicants were retired Nippon Paper Industries USA purchasing manager Jim Lane, Port Angeles chiropractor James Halberg, retired Peninsula College instructor William D. Garrison, and former hospital board candidate and retiree Harold S. Buck.
“We were so pleased at that fact that we had so many quality candidates,” said Knudson.
“Everybody with the board felt that the whole group was really qualified people.”
