The corporate culture at Irvine’s Sun Healthcare Group Inc. is found in frequent-flier miles and BlackBerrys.
Executives of the operator of nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and a medical staffing unit are spread across three time zones at the company’s headquarters in Irvine, a hub in New Mexico and offices in Boston and Dallas.
On top of that, the company has facilities in about two dozen states.
“We have a dispersed leadership team,I guess that would be the way I’d say it,” said William Mathies, Sun’s chief operating officer in Irvine who also runs SunBridge, the company’s largest subsidiary. “We have to continue to reach out, involve (people), get on a plane and go meet people.”
Sun relies on travel, meetings, phone calls, e-mails and BlackBerrys to run the company, which has yearly revenue of about $1.6 billion and a recent market value of $650 million.
Chief Executive Richard “Rick” Matros said he runs the company based on a decentralized culture: “I don’t like having a top-down kind of environment. So I really count on people to do their jobs.”
The company’s executive core is in Irvine with Matros, No. 2 Mathies, Chief Financial Officer L. Bryan Shaul, general counsel Michael Newman and Heidi Fisher, executive vice president of human resources.
In New Mexico is Chauncey Hunker, chief compliance officer and chief risk officer.
Sue Coppola, senior vice president of clinical operations, works in Boston.
Sun came to Boston after spending $350 million last year to buy Harborside Healthcare Corp., another nursing home operator.
Matros said he’s put together his team by looking for smart, passionate people.
“Knowing that everybody’s always going to have different personal styles, I just look for some basic characteristics,” he said.
Executives have to “care about how they treat other people,we’re a very touchy feely business,” Matros said.
Company Operations
Sun runs about 215 nursing homes and other facilities in 25 states through its SunBridge Healthcare subsidiary. The facilities treat people recovering from illness or injury or who have Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. Some of its facilities care for mental health patients.
The company’s SunDance Rehabilitation unit offers physical, occupational and speech therapy. The company also provides medical workers through its CareerStaff Unlimited.
Much of the interaction among the executives takes place electronically.
“Sometimes, I feel like we’re our own children where we’re instant messaging on our BlackBerrys,” Mathies said.
He joined Sun in 2002,on the day the company emerged from bankruptcy reorganization.
Sun filed for bankruptcy protection in 1999, two years after the government slashed Medicare payments to nursing homes. At one time, five of the top seven nursing home operators sought refuge in bankruptcy court.
Matros took over Sun in 2001 after leading two other bankrupt nursing home operators to recovery.
On Mathies, Matros said, “He’s the only operator that I’ve worked with who I trust as much as myself. I know exactly how he’s going to execute.”
Coppola, a former Harborside executive who joined Sun in October, said she interacts with her counterparts “in a variety of ways.”
“I spend significant time on the road traveling among Albuquerque, Irvine and the other states in which we operate,” she said. “Depending on what the topics are, it may be by teleconferencing or video, or it may be that I hop a plane and go meet my associates in another state.”
Sun recently started videoconferencing between Irvine and Albuquerque.
“We all do take the opportunity to meet face-to-face when we’re in the same place,” Fisher of human resources said.
Accessible CEO
Executives call Matros easily accessible.
“In terms of interacting with Rick and the executive team, (it’s) fairly informal,I walk down the hall if he’s around,” general counsel Newman said.
Matros and other executives in Irvine are on one floor in an office building near John Wayne Airport.
“We’re kind of catty corner. He’s on one side and I’m on the other,” Mathies said of his proximity to Matros.
There are formal meetings, including once a month among senior managers.
“As a senior management team, we’ve always really worked well together,” Fisher said. “Nobody kind of runs off and does their own thing in a vacuum.”
There’s occasional tension.
“We don’t always see things the same way,” Fisher said. “But I think we have the kind of environment where we can talk about it and in the end we might say, ‘OK, I still don’t see it the way you see it, but now how do we figure out how to move forward.”
The team’s biggest challenge is balancing the varied interests of its executives, which range from day-to-day operations to dealing with government regulation.
Sun is in a highly “regulated environment, more regulated than nuclear waste,” Coppola said.
Grooming Leaders
The executives are expected to develop leaders from their own teams, Hunker said.
“We’re grooming (other) individuals,” the chief compliance and risk offficer said. “One of the things Rick asks us on a regular basis is, ‘Who do you see as leaders within your organization?'”
Sun has “a couple of other individuals who have tremendous operational upside,” Matros said.
He cited Coppola and Deborah Haugh, the company’s senior vice president of business development, as well as three senior vice presidents of operations who report to Mathies.
“It’s a pretty deep bench and a number of those individuals, I think, are capable of running businesses of their own,” Matros said.
Sun’s team is made up of people who are relatively new to the company and those who have worked with Matros before.
Newman has been with Sun for three years.
“My goal was to be here for about three months while Sun found a new general counsel,” he said. “After a couple of months, I decided I liked it and wanted to stay.”
So much so, Newman drives nearly 50 miles to work from his home near Pasadena.
Fisher, 51, has a long history with Matros. She worked with him at Santa Ana-based Bright Now Dental Inc. and Regency Health Services Inc., a Tustin nursing home operator that Sun bought in 1997.
“Other than Chauncey (Hunker), who was already with the organization, I was one of the first ones Rick brought over after he got here,” Fisher said.
Sun got its start in New Mexico because founder Andrew Turner, who left the company in 2000, wanted to live there. Matros moved the headquarters here in 2003.
The executive team gets together for a yearly off-site conference and board retreats, rather than “some fancy ski resort or golf course,” Newman said.
Spare Time
Outside the office, the executives spend time with family and on hobbies.
Fisher, who has grown children and two grandchildren, said she and her husband “have always been passionate about our dogs.”
They work with a rescue group for miniature schnauzers. They’re raising a pair she describes as “our new ‘kids.'”
Fisher and her husband also started a wine club.
Hunker, a Wisconsin native with three grown sons, likes to travel, go boating and skiing.
Mathies, a 48-year-old Newport Beach resident with two teen daughters, likes to surf.
“Rick knows that there are some early mornings when there are waves out there that it may take a little while before I answer the phone,” he said.
THE TEAM:
Richard “Rick” Matros:
54, chairman, chief executive since late 2001. From 1998 to 2000, was chief executive of Santa Ana-based Bright Now Dental Inc. From 1994 to 1997, held top posts at long-term care operator Regency Health Services Inc. of Tustin. From 1988 to 1994, held top posts at Tustin’s Care Enterprises Inc. Director, Bright Now Dental, Vericare.
William Mathies:
48, chief operating officer since 2006. President, SunBridge nursing home subsidiary since 2002. Also president, chief operating officer of SHG Services Inc., holding company for services businesses since early 2006. From 1981 to 2002, held various posts at long-term care company Beverly Enterprises Inc. Director, My InnerView Inc.
L. Bryan Shaul:
63, chief financial officer, executive vice president since 2005. From 2001 to 2005, was executive vice president, CFO of Res-Care Inc. From 1999 to 2001, was vice president, finance, vice president, mergers, acquisitions, Humana Inc. From 1997 to 1999, was CFO of Primary Health Inc. From 1994 to 1996, was senior vice president, CFO of RightChoice Managed Care Inc. From 1971 to 1993, held various posts with Coopers & Lybrand, including partner-in-charge of West Coast insurance practice.
Susan Gwyn:
56, president of SunDance Rehabilitation Corp. subsidiary for physical, occupational therapists, speech pathologists. Formerly senior vice president of rehabilitation services for Harborside Healthcare Corp. Served in regional, senior-level positions for nine years at Prism Rehab Systems, a provider of contract rehabilitation, management services. Earlier worked for a not-for-profit that provided services to pediatric, adult patients.
Michael Newman:
59, executive vice president, general counsel since 2005. From 1983 to 2005, was partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP.
Deborah Haugh:
46, senior vice president of business development, directs marketing for SunBridge subsidiary. Formerly was vice president of corporate marketing, business development for six years at Genesis
Healthcare Corp.
Richard Peranton:
58, president of medical staffing subsidiary CareerStaff Unlimited since 2004. From 1994 to 2001, was chief executive of Nursefinders Inc. Previously was chief executive of medical information services company EMSI Inc.
Glen Cavallo:
50, president of SolAmor Hospice subsidiary. Before coming to Sun, helped develop Beverly Enterprises’ hospice company, oversaw its infusion therapy, home health and private duty companies. Served in various posts in home health, hospice including overseeing private regional organizations as well as subsidiaries of national public companies.
Chauncey J. Hunker:
57, chief risk officer since late 2006, chief compliance officer since 2000. From 1996 to 2000, served as vice president of continuous quality improvement of SunDance subsidiary. From 1995 to 1996, was clinical director of SunDance. From 1992 to 1995, was regional vice president of learning services in Madison, Wis.
Sue Coppola:
45, senior vice president of resident services, SunBridge. Earlier was senior vice president of clinical operations at Harborside Healthcare, which was acquired by Sun Healthcare in 2007. Prior to her five years at Harborside, was healthcare consulting practice manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Heidi J. Fisher:
51, senior vice president of human resources since 2002. From 1998 to 2002, was vice president of human resources of Bright Now Dental Inc. From 1997 to 1998, was corporate director of human resources at Covenant Care Inc. From 1994 to 1997, was with Regency Health Services Inc., most recently as senior director of human resources. From 1987 to 1994, was senior manager of human resources with Volt Delta Resources Inc.
