QUINCY VALLEY POST-REGISTER |
PARTNERS |
AFFILIATED SITES |
|||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Copyright 2008 World Publishing Company. All rights reserved. |
|||||
Kubicki bleeds black and gold
Doug Flanagan/reporter@qvpr.com
Ted Kubicki has been the manager of Quincy Valley Community Health since last fall.
Ted Kubicki is a diehard Pittsburgh sports fan. Growing up in the Steel City, he witnessed the birth of the Steelers’ storied dynasty in the National Football League and the Pirates’ rise to elite status in the 1970s in Major League Baseball behind the play of superstars Willie Stargell and Roberto Clemente.
Kubicki, of course, is saddened by the woes of current Steeler quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and the Pirates’ seemingly never-ending run of futility, but is happy that the National Hockey League’s Penguins are the defending Stanley Cup champions.
Kubicki bleeds black and gold, there’s no doubt about that. But when he tells somebody that two of his three daughters live in the Cleveland area, an obvious question has to be asked.
“Nope,” he says with a firm shake of his head. “They’re Steelers fans. They were born that way and will never change. There’s actually lots of Steelers fans in Cleveland because when the old steel mills closed in Pittsburgh, a lot of the workers moved west to Ohio.”
Last year, Kubicki moved to Quincy, where he’s probably one of the few Steelers fans around. Kubicki took the job of director of operations at the Quincy Community Health Center, a position he relishes.
“(My duties) change every day,” he said. “It’s a small clinic, a small facility, so I do lots of different jobs. I use a lot of different skillls. We have everything you’d find in a large facility, and I have to know something about everything that’s going on. I love to multi-task, and around here I’m known as a fixer.”
Kubicki said the center has about 2,000 visits per month.
“We provide a lot of healthcare,” he said. “We’ve got a clinic, behavioral health, dental. We have a myriad of services, some of which you won’t find in a hospital. We have a great staff with six super providers. The impact that an administrator can make depends on his or her staff and providers and an ability to tune into the problems of the patients. We can do that with the staff here. We can make a big impact on the community. We treat everyone the same and we accept all payers. That makes a big difference in this economy. We’re a lifeline for a lot of people.”
Before coming to Quincy, Kubicki spent the last 25 years in Amarillo, Texas, where he worked in a variety of different healthcare jobs. His path west started after the steel mill he was working at in Pennsylvania closed in 1981.
“I ran hospitals and I built hospitals,” he said. “I didn’t have a set path, but (my career) has been exciting to me. And challenging. Here, it’s like running a small city. There’s lot of things to pay attention to.”
After his youngest daughter graduated from college last year, Kubicki and his wife sought a move to the West Coast and found Quincy to be a perfect fit.
“I wanted a less stressful position and more time at home,” he said. “Actually, this is a lot like Amarillo with the sagebrush and the desert and lack of rain. When we were driving here from Spokane, my wife took pictures and her friends responded, ‘Are you sure you left the Texas panhandle?’ It’s the same geographic look, only with mountains.
“And I like the small-town atmosphere, the friendliness of the people. In Pennsylvania and Texas, people are really friendly. But in other places I’ve been, people don’t acknowledge you as much. I’ve worked in big cities, and sometimes you’re just a number. I like the family feel.”
