lint Treadway’s title at Montgomery Regional Hospital is Director of
Engineering, but he’s really
a master of all trades, from building parking lots to accommodating the Herculean
gravitational force of an MRI to directing the hospital’s response to a chemical
spill.
"You have to be able to chew gum and run at the same time here," he says.
On the night of March 3rd, 2004, a 10,000-gallon tank of ammonia sprang a leak at a
nearby industrial plant, and Clint, also the chief safety officer, had to quickly develop
a plan to treat an influx of patients while evacuating the hospital to safer quarters.
Luckily, Blacksburg’s notorious winds
remained still, and Treadway’s disaster plan wasn’t implemented.
Last year, in a calmer project, Treadway and developer Bill Ellenbogen teamed up to
hire Anderson & Associates and a general
contractor to handle their separate but adjacent projects simultaneously. A&A designed
and oversaw the construction of the hospital’s parking lot and warehouse, as well as
the clearing and preparation of 10 building sites for Ellenbogen’s
medical office complex. The joint project, which involved leveling a hill and extending
a town road, created 500 parking spaces for Montgomery Regional. Clint estimates that the
shared venture saved HCA, his employer, approximately 10 percent of the cost of a solo
project.
Clint and his staff of six have charge of the hospital’s security and biomedical
engineering, in addition to the challenging tasks of meeting a myriad of regulatory
requirements, altering the physical plant to meet the demands of medical technology, and
maintaining 1700 pieces of medical equipment.
They are currently assessing the hospital’s space needs in order to draw up a
5-year strategic plan. They know the operating suites, emergency department, and
out-patient care area will have to be expanded. "We’re not ruling out building a
new hospital," he says. "Since Montgomery Regional was built in 1970,
they’ve had six multi-million-dollar expansions. We’ve about used up all
available land here."
Clint has worked for HCA for 25 years – 10 at Montgomery Regional and 15 in Northern Virginia, where he commuted daily from his Orange County, Va. farm.
"I reduced my commute from 180 miles to 18 miles when I moved here," he said.
He and his wife, Jennie, have three children, ages 27 to 32. Five years ago, they
adopted a 5-year-old girl. The family shares their Dublin
farm with several Black Angus cattle, six sheep, 12 chickens, three cats, three dogs,
three ducks, two rabbits, and "any other animal that wants to come around here,"
he says.
