SEATTLE – (Jan. 19, 2017) – Tod Hamachek is the new chair of the Virginia Mason Health System and Virginia Mason Medical Center Boards of Directors. His two-year term began Jan. 1.

As chairman, he leads the boards that govern Virginia Mason Medical Center and Virginia Mason Health System (which includes the hospital, Benaroya Research Institute, Bailey-Boushay House and Virginia Mason Memorial in Yakima).

He has been a member of the Virginia Mason boards since 2006 and previously served as a board member from 1986 until 1998.

Hamachek, who retired as chairman and CEO of Penwest Pharmaceuticals Co. in 2005, is also chairman of the Northwest Natural Gas Co. Board of Directors. He is a member of the boards of The Seattle Times Co.; Blethen Corp. (majority owner of The Seattle Times); and Sun Valley (Idaho) Center for the Arts.

He is a past director of First Interstate Bank of Washington and DeKalb Genetics Corp.; past director of the Washington Roundtable; former chairman and member of the University of Washington School of Business advisory board; past vice chairman and trustee of the Seattle Foundation; past trustee of Williams College, Lewis & Clark College, the Nature Conservancy-Washington Chapter, Pacific Science Center, and the Pacific Northwest Arts and Crafts Association; former chairman of the Pacific Crest Outward Bound School Board of Trustees; and a former trustee of Outward Bound and Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, Conn.

About Virginia Mason Health System
Virginia Mason, founded in 1920, is a nonprofit regional health care system based in Seattle that serves the Pacific Northwest. In the Puget Sound region, the system includes 336-bed Virginia Mason Hospital; a primary and specialty care group practice of more than 500 physicians; regional medical centers in Seattle, Bainbridge Island, Bellevue, Federal Way, Kirkland, Issaquah and Lynnwood; Bailey-Boushay House, the first skilled-nursing and outpatient chronic care management program in the United States designed and built specifically to meet the needs of people with HIV/AIDS; Benaroya Research Institute, which is internationally recognized for autoimmune disease research; and Virginia Mason Institute, which trains health care professionals and others from around the world in the Virginia Mason Production System, an innovative management methodology for continually improving quality, safety and efficiency. Virginia Mason online: VirginiaMason.org

Virginia Mason Health System also includes Virginia Mason Memorial, a 226-bed hospital serving the Yakima Valley in central Washington since 1950. Memorial online: YakimaMemorial.org