SB Cottage Health’s President & CEO Ron Werft Retires

President & CEO of SB Cottage Health Ron Werft first made his announcement to retire via internal hospital communication last week, resulting in a press release the same day. The announcement initially caught both internal staff and the town a tad off guard, in view of his full-on 37-year career at SBCH, one marked by many firsts and milestones for the hospital. He will remain on board through the transition of his replacement, targeting the retirement date in 2025.

During Werft’s tenure at SBCH, he and his team secured record donations to Cottage Health, including $65 million by Mary and Richard Compton, earmarked for the Compton Center for Medical Excellence and Innovation, as well as naming its new ER Trauma Center after Naomi and Ben Bollag for their generous funding. 

The hospital’s expansions included its 20-year construction yielding a complete make-over to meet seismic safety regulations; regional expansion with the construction of the Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital and the Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital; liaisons with universities via the Cottage Center for Population Health and the Cottage Health Research Institute; and new specialty areas of medicine in trauma care, neuroscience, cardiology, orthopedics, pediatrics, and psychology.

Werft served as a trustee of the American Hospital Association, chair of both AHA’s Region 9 Policy Board of California Hospital Association, and the Hospital Association of Southern California; and as a board member of Santa Barbara Partners in Education, CenCal, Santa Barbara Fighting Back Coalition, Vizient West Coast, United Way, and World Telehealth Initiative. He was awarded the 2013 CHA Award of Merit for outstanding contribution to the California healthcare community, and the 2015 Walker-Sullivan Fellowship presented by California Health Foundation & Trust.

I was granted an email interview with Werft through hospital PR Management to discuss his decision and upcoming plans. Here is our transcript:

Q. Among what may be many factors in your consideration to retire, what was the defining one sealing your decision? 

A. It was a combination of factors that made this feel like the right time for me to retire. Cottage Health is in a good place to serve the community now and in the future. Cottage has a talented Board of Directors who bring diversity of backgrounds and experience to their leadership, and an exceptional executive and medical staff leadership team that is well-prepared to continue our mission with a new leader. 

Five-star quality and top decile patient satisfaction at Cottage is driven by our culture of shared governance that focuses on patients first throughout the organization. Patient feedback is better than ever. Everyone has a role in carrying forward our 132-year legacy of caring, of serving as a not-for-profit organization built by this community we cherish. It’s important to all of us.

We’ve completed three hospital construction projects, with Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital recently completing a 20-year, eight-phase complete rebuild. We’ve launched new services including Urgent Care, Virtual Care, Primary Care and specialty clinics – increasing access to care in the community. And plans are underway for the Compton Center for Medical Excellence and Innovation, which will be transformative for healthcare advances in our region and beyond.

All of this we’ve accomplished with community support. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of colleagues or a better community. Cottage Health is in good hands, and now it’s time for me to spend more time with Mary and our family and to focus on a new role: Grandpa to Lucas, our first grandchild, who’s nearly two months old.”

When you leave SBCH in 2025, are you heading into a second career (i.e. are you taking on another position)?

I’ll continue to serve on the World Telehealth Initiative Board, and the American Hospital Association Quest for Quality Committee. Mary and I will take some time before making other plans, and we are open to what life brings our way.

What are you looking forward to when you retire from SBCH – leaving the area, traveling, writing your memoir…? 

I’m looking forward to time with family, to travel, to learning about retirement and having days with some unscheduled blocks of time to explore. Mary and I love Santa Barbara and all our friends here. This community is home. So we’re not leaving. We’ll spend time with our grandson, and enjoy frequent visits to our other favorite state, Minnesota.

Any additional comments for the readership of the Montecito Journal?

The opportunity to lead this incredible health system – Cottage Health – has been the joy and honor of my professional life. Cottage is a very special place. I’ve been extremely fortunate to work with so many incredible people – dedicated, skilled and compassionate employees, physicians, executives, board members, volunteers, and donors – who never stop caring and striving to protect the health of our community.

SB Cottage Hospital Additional News

Neuroscience Clinic opened on July 26 as part of the SBCH system. Services include comprehensive consultation, diagnosis, treatment options and ongoing management. The focus is to improve symptoms and quality of life for patients. Physicians are Richard Chung, MD, PhD; Nicole Moayeri, FAANS,and Brian Walcott, MD. 

As announced by Cardiology on August 1, SBCH is the first hospital on the Central Coast to use the latest treatment for leaky heart valve (also known as tricuspid regurgitation). The device is called a TriClip™ and is applied to the defective valve using the Transcatheter Edge-to-Edge Repair system (TEER), a minimally invasive procedure. 

The TriClip™ device is delivered to the heart through a vein in the leg. It clips together a portion of the tricuspid valve’s leaflets, reducing blood backflow and allowing the heart to pump blood more efficiently.

411: cottagehealth.org