“It doesn”™t seem like 38 years, I”™ll tell you that,” Jon B. Schandler said on a mid-April morning in his CEO office at White Plains Hospital. “It goes really quickly.”
His office would soon be cleared of the mementos acquired in a long career and turned over to his successor. Schandler”™s official retirement date was April 30 at the 292-bed community hospital on East Post Road where construction barriers steer patients and visitors past contracting crews busy on hospital expansion and renovation projects this spring. But the celebratory, laudatory retirement dinner already was several months past. The leadership transition that had Susan Fox, the White Plains Hospital president and Schandler”™s announced successor since 2013, move into the CEO”™s office in late April began five years ago.
The manner in which Schandler relinquished the CEO”™s desk early for Fox”™s move there was more evidence of the “great sense of generosity and humility” that White Plains Hospital Board Chairman J. Michael Divney and other colleagues observed in him.
- Jon B. Schandler, then and now.
“He”™s going to be available, but he”™s passing the baton,” Divney said. Having led the hospital in the last year into its new partnership with Montefiore Health System, Schandler is “willing to let go and put that in the hands of others. I think that”™s really pretty remarkable.”
Turning 65 this spring, Schandler said he thought it a good time for him to step down ”” though he won”™t step away entirely from what Fox called “his life”™s work” at the hospital in White Plains. In the fast-changing health care industry, “I think it”™s time for the next generation of leaders to step forward,” he said. “I think it”™s a young person”™s business. It takes an enormous amount of energy, an enormous amount of commitment.”
“My epiphany was, I was about to turn 60 years old,” he said. He saw colleagues working past 65 who were unhappy in their jobs.
A certified public accountant at Price Waterhouse with no experience in the hospital field when he interviewed for the controller”™s job in White Plains in 1976, Schandler was hired at the age of 26 and became chief operating officer at 29. Working extremely long hours seven days a week to convince the hospital board of his fitness for the CEO”™s duties during a national search to fill the position, he was appointed to the hospital”™s top job at the age of 31.
“It was a different time,” he said, alluding to his unusually young age when named CEO. “Some board members saw in me more than I saw in me.”
“My role is to think five years out,” he said of the strategic planning and vision required of a hospital CEO. That included a five-year succession plan to assure a smooth transition of leadership at the hospital he has run since 1981.
“I knew that a seamless transition from the inside would have a much better chance of succeeding than someone from the outside,” he said. “Someone who is coming in creates a lot more opportunity” for dissension and disagreement among staff.
Fox, an executive at North Shore-LIJ Health System who began her career as a registered nurse, said she “definitely had in mind that I wanted to be running an organization” when in 2010 she interviewed for the position of senior vice president of administration at White Plains Hospital. She was hired; Schandler said Fox was his choice from the start to succeed him. “From the minute Susan Fox came on board, we just clicked naturally,” he said.
Working as partners, “I got the opportunity to see first-hand how he was so successful,” Fox said. “I think being able to work together over the last five years, it”™s been a very challenging time in health care, perhaps the most challenging time.”
“She”™s an owner,” Schandler said of his handpicked successor. “She”™s there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. ”¦It”™s a tough job. You need somebody who is at it as an owner.”
Hospital CEOs now must lead their institutions in navigating the change in the health care industry from what Schandler called “episodic” treatment of disease in patients and a fee-for-service pay model to a focus on population health, better-coordinated, cost-controlled care by providers and insurers and wellness programs to reduce the incidence of disease and hospitalizations.
“I think that”™s the transformation that we”™re into right now,” he said. “And at the same time running the business.” A hospital needs to provide clinical care at the highest level but also have adequate finances to keep the hospital operating. “Putting all that together is the art of our job,” Schandler said.
For the hospital board of directors, “He has a very sharp sense of understanding what our options might be and has the answers for all of them,” Divney said of Schandler. “He”™s the best source of business intelligence there is in health care. He knows it all and he”™s our team leader.”
In a period of shifting realities in health care, “We have become a very well-informed board because of his knowledge and his ability to communicate,” Divney said.
“I think it”™s been a gift for me to be in the same organization for all these years,” Schandler said. “You really develop relationships and make connections with the community and the doctors and the board members.”
In his long tenure, “I think one of the hallmarks has been that we plan with our doctors, we”™ve developed very strong strategic relationships with them.”
Schandler also has proven adept at cultivating relationships with donors to the nonprofit hospital. He said he spent 20 percent to 30 percent of his time as CEO at fundraising.
On a recent weekend at home, he was on the phone with a donor being treated in the hospital emergency room, the kind of call he has often made and received as hospital chief. “If you give money to this hospital, I consider you part of the family,” he said.
A White Plains Hospital spokesperson said Schandler has raised $188 million for the hospital as CEO. In retirement, Schandler said he would continue in his fundraising role as a consultant to the hospital for “a couple years.”
He leaves the CEO post knowing the hospital is in better health than when he arrived.
Its staff has grown from 700 employees in 1976 to approximately 2,500 today. The hospital is embarked on the most extensive capital improvements project in its history. The relationship with the larger, well-financed Montefiore system “positions us effectively for the future” and brings a “substantial” infusion of capital to the White Plains hospital, Schandler said.
The hospital had it best financial year in 2014, ending with an approximately 8.4 percent operating surplus and 2 percent revenue growth. “I”™m really proud of that 2 percent,” Schandler said.
“White Plains is doing as well as it”™s ever done in our history,” he said. As hospitals closed in the area, “A lot of those hospitals”™ patients have gravitated to us. We”™re seeing year-to-year growth, which almost no one in our industry is seeing.”
With a “seamless” transition underway, said Schandler, “I”™m really fortunate to be able to step away and embrace the next phase of my life ”” which I”™m looking forward to. Hopefully play a little more golf and see my granddaughter a lot more frequently.” He and his wife have rented an apartment in Dallas for regular monthly visits with their grandchild.
But Schandler won”™t entirely shed what Divney called his “incredible work ethic.”
“If I could move from 70 or 80 hours a week to 30 or 40 hours, that would be a huge positive change in my life,” Schandler said.
