Marshall Rose elected to head Cottage Health System board

(February 2005) Marshall Rose has been elected chair of the board of directors of Cottage Health System. Also newly elected are John Romo, president of Santa Barbara City College, and cardiologist Dr. Thomas Watson. Completing terms in January were Dr. James McNamara and John Mackall. A complete list of CHS Board members can be found here.

Marshall Rose was previously vice chair of the not-for-profit voluntary board, all of whose members serve without pay to guide the Cottage hospitals in their mission of providing quality medical services to their communities.

Rose's involvement on the Cottage board, which he first joined in 1992, has included key leadership positions on subcommittees dealing with nursing, quality, development/foundation/community health, employee relations, and executive and strategic planning. He was first named vice chair in 1997, and again from 2000 to 2004.

Born at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, Rose graduated from Santa Barbara High School and went on to receive a bachelor's degree in business administration from UC Berkeley before joining the family's retail apparel business, Lou Rose, which for many years operated a number of Santa Barbara area stores. He is currently executive director of the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization and has been actively involved on a number of other local boards over the years, including serving as president of the Santa Barbara Foundation, CALM and the Montecito Community Foundation, and as chairman of the Santa Barbara Downtown Parking Committee.

He and his wife, Heidi, are the parents of two grown children, Jennifer and Eric.

Serving with Rose as 2005 officers of the 19-member board are vice chairs Cathy Carter Duncan and Fred Gluck, together with secretary Dr. Jeffrey Kupperman and treasurer Dr. Nicholas Vincent.

During his 36 years in Santa Barbara, John Romo has been actively involved in the community. He currently serves on the boards of Santa Barbara County's United Way, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Partners in Education, the Santa Barbara Area Chamber of Commerce, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and the Fighting Back Steering Committee.

He is past chairman of the Santa Barbara Downtown/Waterfront Visioning process and has served on the boards of Santa Barbara County Schools, Santa Barbara Region Economic Community Project Leadership Group, Santa Barbara Planned Parenthood, Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara, and the Santa Barbara Hispanic Achievement Council. He has also been a member of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Hispanic Business Council of the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce.

He is a recipient of the 2004 Pierre Claeyssens Award for Distinguished Service from Emmaus of Santa Barbara. He has also received the University of Redlands Alumni 2003 Career Achievement Award, the Santa Barbara Hispanic Achievement Council Award for leadership and service to the community, the Latinos for Better Government Community Service Award, the Santa Barbara Hispanic Business Council Volunteer Service Award, and the Distinguished Community Service Award from the Anti-Defamation League and Santa Barbara B'nai B'rith Lodge.

Romo began his career at SBCC in 1977 as an instructor in the Essential Skills department. Over the next 22 years, he held the posts of Dean of Instructional Services, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Vice President for the Continuing Education Division. From 1999 to 2002, he served as Chief Operating Officer of the national office of Planned Parenthood in New York City. He returned to Santa Barbara in 2002 as President of SBCC.

He and Mary, his wife of 36 years, have two grown sons, Ben and Dan.

Dr. Thomas Watson has been a leading cardiologist in the Santa Barbara community for the past 20 years. A native of Hollywood, Florida, Watson earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Tulane University, later receiving his medical degree from its School of Medicine. This was followed by an internship and internal medicine residency at Letterman Army Medical Center, Presidio of San Francisco, where he subsequently completed a fellowship in cardiology. Watson then spent two years at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, as staff cardiologist and director of the non-invasive laboratory, before returning to Letterman where, over a period of three years, he was director of the cardiac care unit and inpatient service, and later director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory. During this time, he also served as assistant professor of medicine for the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Washington, DC.

Watson first joined the medical staff at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in 1984 when he moved to the area as a cardiologist for what is now Sansum-Santa Barbara Medical Foundation Clinic. Since 1985, he has been assistant clinical professor of medicine for the University of Southern California, and since 1990 has served as director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.

Board certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular diseases, and interventional cardiology, Watson has published and presented widely in the cardiology field, and has been involved in a number of clinical trials related to heart disease. He is a past president of the Santa Barbara Chapter of the American Heart Association.

Dr. Watson and his wife, Jo Ellen, are the parents of three grown children, Kimberly, Amy, and Bradley.

The not-for-profit Cottage Health System consists of 366-bed Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, a regional trauma center and teaching hospital, with its associated Cottage Children's Hospital; 122-bed Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital; and 22-bed Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital. Last year, the hospitals provided inpatient care for 21,000 people, treated 62,000 patients through their 24-hour emergency departments, and helped deliver 2,900 newborns. With a staff of more than 2,500, Cottage is the largest private employer in the County.

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