In a closed executive session on Monday, the Aspen Valley Hospital board of directors solidified a contract bringing Dave Ressler back in as chief executive officer.
Hospital officials were initially hesitant to release Ressler’s taxpayer funded compensation, but the returning executive acknowledged that he has shared the information in the past. His base salary is $402,000 a year. He and his wife will also move into the hospital-provided housing.
Ressler left the CEO position at AVH in 2013. Since then, he has led the nonprofit Community Care Alliance, and spent much of his time in rural hospital districts. He said he is now much more familiar with what works and doesn’t in hospitals such as Aspen’s.
“It’s hard to think of Aspen and all of its amenities as rural,” Ressler said. “It is by the definition of its distance to the next closest facility and it is a small population.”
Ressler’s first official day is Monday, Sept. 26, though he will begin meeting with staff and board members before then. The budget process for 2017 will get underway as soon as he begins.
