Peak Vista CEO leaving -- sort of

BJ Scott, the longtime president and CEO of Peak Vista Community Health Centers, will leave that job in a few months but move into a related executive position, the nonprofit health provider announced Friday.

Scott will become the first-ever executive director of the 6-year-old Peak Vista Community Health Centers Foundation, a separate nonprofit that raises money to support Peak Vista’s operations and other organizations with a similar mission of providing health care to people who are uninsured, underinsured or face other barriers to medical care.

Scott has been with Peak Vista for 15 years, and has been CEO and president for the last 10.

But since the foundation was created in 2005, she’s also been heavily involved with it as well, serving as something of a de facto chief executive. Now that the foundation has grown, she said Friday, it needs a separate leader and staff.

“While I love to do them both, it’s too big of a job for just one person, so I have just a wonderful opportunity to move over there and do it more full-time once the board picks a successor for me,” Scott said. “It feels like a good time for the organization, and for me, to transition.”

Using a succession plan that has been in place for several years, Peak Vista’s board of directors has created a search committee with an eye toward naming a new president and CEO by mid-2011. Scott will continue as CEO until then.

Scott already directed one of Peak Vista’s biggest campaigns: a $10 million Community Benefit Initiative launched in 2008 to fund four major construction and remodeling projects. All but about $1 million has been raised.

Under Scott’s leadership, Peak Vista’s annual budget has gone from $16 million to $47 million, and the number of patients on its rolls has jumped from 27,155 to 61,000.

Peak Vista started in 1971 as the Free Clinic of Colorado Springs, which was open two nights a week and staffed by volunteer medical professionals. It now has about 20 centers, many of which opened under Scott’s leadership and serve specialized populations, including seniors, children, women, the homeless and people with developmental disabilities.

Peak Vista also extended its reach outside Colorado Springs to serve people in Teller County and the Fountain Valley area.