Inova Health System Names Buzz Smith Chairman of Health Care Services Board
Falls Church, VA – (April 2, 2009) — Inova Health System has named Buzz Smith Chairman of the Inova Health Care Services Board of Trustees for the 2009 governance year.
Mr. Smith, president of Blue Ridge Advisors LLC, a private equity advisory firm, has had a long association with healthcare. In 1982, he joined the board of Alexandria Hospital and later served as chairman of its parent, the Alexandria Health Services Corporation.
Mr. Smith has been chief executive officer of Potomac Partners, Inc., a local real estate development firm with hotels and office buildings in the Mid-Atlantic region. With the sale of that company in 1998, Mr. Smith became executive vice president of West*Group, a Northern Virginia development company. He subsequently left West*Group to form Blue Ridge Advisors.
In addition to being chairman of the Inova Health Care Services Board, Mr. Smith currently serves as a trustee on the Inova Health System Board and as chairman of the Quality Committee at Inova Mount Vernon Hospital.
He also has been active in other community and educational organizations, including Goodwin House Incorporated, a charitable corporation developing and operating life-care facilities for the aging. Continuing more than 20 years of service as a member of the Board of Trustees there and former director of the Goodwin House Foundation, he has acted as chairman of three development committees focused on new building projects.
Mr. Smith is a member of the Business Advisory Council of the University of Virginia Law School, where he earned his law degree, and has served as vice chairman of the Industrial Development Authority for the City of Alexandria and as a director on the Board of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership. He is a former member of the Budget and Fiscal Affairs Advisory Committee for the City of Alexandria, advising members of City Council on budget matters. He was a founding director of the Bank of Alexandria, now part of BB&T Bank, and he served as a director on the Alexandria Economic Development and Tourism Board and the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce.
Inova Health System is a not-for-profit healthcare system based in Northern Virginia that consists of hospitals and other health services, including emergency- and urgent-care centers, home care, nursing homes, mental health and blood donor services, and wellness classes. Governed by a voluntary board of community members, Inova’s mission is to improve the health of the diverse community it serves through excellence in patient care, education and research. Inova provides a healthy environment for its patients, families, visitors, staff and physicians by prohibiting tobacco use on its campuses.