Walt Mickens

As president/CEO of Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, Walt Mickens is tasked with running the 191-bed, acute-care facility and largest provider of health care services in Napa County. “The Queen” is also among the county’s largest private employers. Luckily, Mickens has plenty of experience in the field. Prior to joining QVMC, “I was the CEO of a hospital in Boca Raton, Florida,” he reveals. “We enjoyed Florida when we weren’t under threat of a hurricane, which seemed to occur far too often!”

 

These days, Mickens and his family face much less dire weather conditions: “We live just inside the city limits in east Napa, a perfect spot really, as we’re less than two miles from the Queen but it feels like we’re out in the country.”

 

 

I was inspired by my uncle, who was a pathologist back in New Jersey. He trained at the hospital where I was born and, when I started my career there after college, many of the long-tenured staff still remembered him.

 

We’re blessed with such great caregivers and support staff at the Queen that, almost anytime I meet someone and tell them what I do, I hear about how “The Queen” made a difference in their life. It’s amazing really. I’ve worked in some very fine hospitals, but I’ve never seen a hospital embraced so strongly by its community. It really belongs to this community, and the collective “pride of ownership” is humbling.

 

I have a copy of A Compassionate Presence, a book that chronicles the history of the Sisters of St. Joseph, the founders of St. Joseph Healthcare and QVMC. They’re an amazing group of women who came to California 100 years ago with less than $1 and have carried out their mission of bringing people together using health care and education as their main vehicles. We’re blessed to have Sisters at the Queen to this very day.

 

Susan and I will celebrate 20 great years together this summer. She’s an amazing person who can somehow balance being a mom, a wife, running our household and working as a pediatric nurse practitioner here in Napa.

 

I love to spend time with my family. My two boys are into sports and theater, and watching them do what they love is very fulfilling. As a family, Susan and I enjoy skiing but it’s snowboarding for the boys. We also enjoy traveling together, which is always an adventure. Closer to home, I love to play golf.

 

I’m very competitive. I played football all the way from childhood through college. After graduation, I discovered long distance running almost by accident. A coworker was training for a marathon and mentioned it to me during a casual conversation. I asked about it, and he told me it was 26.2 miles and the race was in two months. I said ‘I’ll run it with you.” He replied, “You can’t do that, it’s impossible.” That was all it took. Eight weeks later, I completed the Long Island Marathon, the first road race I’d ever run. It was a painful experience but I finished in something like 4:30, which I thought was terrible…but that just became the new challenge. I eventually ran four marathons with a best time of 3:36 or just over eight minutes per mile—not bad for an old offensive lineman! Two summers ago, I had visions of running the Napa Valley Marathon, but before the training even got serious, I wound up with multiple injuries. My goal now is just to be able to walk the golf course and enjoy a weekend game with friends.

 

I’m more inclined to follow the rules, but I make sure I understand them really well and use that as an advantage.

 

I’d love to have been in the room when our founding fathers were drafting the Constitution. It’s amazing to me that, so many years later, it’s still a model for the free world.

 

I keep Mass Cards from special people in my life. I’ve carried my grandmother’s since 1982 and my mother’s since her passing in 1996. It’s a good reminder to me of what’s important in life.