Shirley is a Montezuma County native where she graduated from Montezuma Cortez High School. She spent her early career training racehorses with her husband in Arizona and New Mexico before returning to college. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Accounting from Fort Lewis College. Shirley has over 20 years of nonprofit accounting experience and is currently Region 9 Economic Development’s Comptroller.

Shirley has strong ties to the hospital with her mother retiring from SW Memorial Hospital after 40 years and numerous friends & family being employed by the hospital over the years.  She understands the important role the hospital plays in our community’s economic success. She believes her financial knowledge and her commitment to the hospital’s success is an asset to the Board.

There are several things I enjoy and find fulfilling about being a Board Member. I often hear, and feel that the work we do as Board members is vital to the achieving mission of the Hospital.  That was what attracted me to join the Board. I also find it rewarding to serve the community in a variety of ways, working with my fellow Board members to meet the needs of the community.  

I moved here in 2018 and initially, my goal was to learn about the community and the area, so I thought about the skills that felt I had to offer and how best to apply those given the needs of the community. In speaking with people, I met, as well as my family, several options became clear, including joining this Board. I found the role of being a Board member a natural fit, given over ten years of experience working with boards, but never having worked in healthcare previously, there was much that I knew I needed to learn, especially in this new setting.   

I am a retired pharmacist having spent forty-seven years in that profession. I began my pharmacy career at University Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I worked as staff pharmacist for the hospital and poison center, inpatient pharmacy supervisor, and then chief pharmacist at the University of New Mexico Children’s Psychiatric Center.

I moved from Albuquerque in 2000 after our three children had finished high school and first worked a year at the Northern Navajo Medical Center. I then took a position as pharmacy manager at Walmart in Cortez after realizing that the drive to Shiprock was taking ten hours a week out of my life. My wife and I have lived in the Dolores area for twenty-two years.

Jay Wood is a seasoned professional in nonprofit management and community advocacy, renowned for his deep commitment to improving health and legal services for underprivileged and vulnerable populations. As a current member of the Board of Directors at Southwest Memorial Hospital, Jay brings a wealth of experience that is integral to his role.

In his present capacity as the Diversion Director/Project Director for the 22^nd Judicial District Attorney’s Office, Jay continues to make significant contributions to community welfare and legal advocacy. This role highlights his ongoing dedication to public service and legal justice.

Before joining the DA’s office, Jay served as the Executive Director of Southwest HealthNet in Cortez, Colorado. His work prior to moving to Colorado was equally impactful, as the Director of the Missouri State Legal Services Center working to promote legal aid services to the poor and Executive Director of Missouri KidsFirst, where he provided vital support and guidance through a statewide network of Child Advocacy Centers and led Prevent Child Abuse Missouri.  His work also included serving as the Statewide Chair of the Kids Count Data Book and Chair of the State Prevention Partners made up of State Agency Directors working with prevention issues in Missouri.

I am a retired general surgeon.  Between 2005 and 2018 I worked in the Four Corners, between Shiprock and Blanding.  I went to the big public meeting in the ambulance garage, when it looked like the birthing center might be closed, and there was general concern that several of our health care providers were leaving.  I then suggested to some people I knew that I might be interested is serving on the hospital board, and they encouraged me to do so.

I grew up in West Virginia and graduated from high school in 1966.  I did three semesters at West Virginia University and then volunteered for the draft.  I served two years in the army, one of those years being in Viet Nam.

After discharge I went back to college and graduated in 1973.  I graduated from medical school at Stony Brook, New York, in 1976.  I went back to West Virginia and completed a surgical residency at the Charleston Area Medical Center.

I practiced a few years in Charleston and then moved to northern Montana, where I worked for a few decades.

Since moving to Cortez I have been an active volunteer for The Bridge and The League of Women Voters.  I enjoy reading, bird watching and other outdoor activities, and travel.  Roxanne and I have four children and three grandchildren.  

My educational growth and milestones include graduating from Dolores High in 1980. The one standout accomplishment I recall from that time was earning my license as an Emergency Medical Technician at the age of seventeen through the dedicated teaching of Chuck Melvin. I’m not sure I realized it at the time, but he showed me what it meant to care for and serve others.

I took that desire for service and caring for others into the Army at the age of eighteen and enlisted as a Patient Care Specialist with a Jump School option. It was during these initial three years of service that the Holy Spirit grabbed hold of me revealed God’s will in my life and brought me fully into the service of others.

Along the way, I was blessed with a loving, inspiring, and supportive wife and two sons. I have been with Opal for almost 40 years now and our two accomplished sons and loving daughters-in-law have given us three unique, talented, and amazing grandchildren.