JACKSONVILLE — Jodi Love once turned down a college scholarship, but she believes her choice to join the Navy was the right one at the time.
“I wanted to see the world,” the CEO of North Metro Medical Center in Jacksonville said with a smile.
Love served as a hospital corpsman in the Navy.
It wasn’t until her four-year tour was over and she was working at a nursing home that she decided to go to college and study nursing.
Growing up in northern Pennsylvania as the sixth child of seven, Love said she was the first person in her family to graduate from college.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway and a master’s degree in nursing administration from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.
“Most of my nursing career was at Baptist (Health) in Little Rock, and I spent the last five years there as director of critical care,” she said.
Love said her mother always told her she should be a nurse, but she wanted to be a teacher.
Even though she ended up deciding to go into nursing, she said she still plans to teach nursing and leadership at some point.
Because her husband, Ronald, was in the Air Force, the Loves came to Little Rock Air Force Base. Ronald is retired, but he still works at the base in a civilian job.
“That’s one of our goals at North Metro, to forge that relationship with the base,” Love said.
Six months ago, Love accepted the CEO position at North Metro, following Jay Quebedeaux.
“I followed Jay Quebedeaux, who laid a great framework for me,” Love said. “I’m just continuing on with what he was doing.”
Although it may be unusual for a nurse to transition into a CEO position, Love said she knew at the beginning of her career that she wanted to move into leadership roles. She quickly escalated to charge nurse, shift supervisor, unit manager — all the way up to CEO.
“I’m the first woman to be in this position,” she said about the past 50 years at North Metro Medical Center.
Not only did Love take over the leadership of North Metro, she also saw it through the transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit hospital. On April 13, Allegiance Health Management purchased the hospital from the city of Jacksonville. Although patients won’t notice a change in the level of care, Love said, she is making a few changes in the way the company interacts with the community.
Love plans to implement monthly community health-education meetings, with experts speaking and answering questions on various health-related subjects.
“We are also on Facebook now,” she said.
Love’s assistant, Karen Ward, said that in the 26 years that she’s been at the hospital, Love is the ninth CEO for whom she’s worked.
“Jodi and I just clicked,” Ward said. “We get along great, and we like a lot of the same things,” although Ward laughed and admitted that she isn’t a football fan like Love.
“But we just don’t talk about that,” she said with a laugh. “She wants us to succeed, and she works really hard to see that we do. She is on our side.”
Love may be the hospital’s CEO, but she still makes daily rounds and checks in on some of the patients.
During the interview, Love momentarily stepped away from her desk and leaned out the door to ask Ward a question about the condition of a patient Love had visited on her daily rounds that morning.
She smiled and said, “Once a nurse, always a nurse.”
When she’s not nursing or running a hospital, she said she loves football.
“I am a huge Dallas Cowboys fan,” she said. “I was a season-ticket holder for two years.”
She said she developed her love of football when she was in the fifth grade and fell in love with Roger Staubach, a former quarterback for Dallas.
“I met him when I was at the last game [the Cowboys played] at Texas Stadium before they tore it down,” she said.
Most of Love’s family is still in Pennsylvania, and she said she misses all the family get-togethers.
“We are going up there for my sister’s 50th birthday,” she said with a smile. “I’m really looking forward to that.”
Love said that when one is growing up in a large family, it’s “just the way it is.” But she said when she moved away, she realized how much she loved it.
“I loved the holidays,” she said. “There’s always something going on.”
Love and her husband have two sons in college. Morgan is a senior at Hendrix College in Conway, and Stephen is a freshman at the University of Arkansas at Monticello.
Staff writer Jeanni Brosius can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or jbrosius@arkansasonline.com.