It seems like a no-brainer that the president and CEO of an organization that simply calls itself Community Hospital would show community leadership. But Chris Thomas has underscored his Grand Junction, Colo.-based organization's name and identity through his support of youth career education, prevention and wellness outreach, and aggressive extension of primary-care services in the region.

“I see our role as more than just providing inpatient and outpatient care,” says Thomas, 46, a finalist for the Community Leadership Award. “It's our responsibility to be part of the community and support the community.”

Thomas has led Community Hospital's efforts to hold a career day each year for more than 75 high school students, who have the opportunity to tour various hospital departments and gain a sense of the career possibilities.

“We want to support the community, but we also know we're going to need great healthcare workers in the future” as the baby boom generation retires, Thomas says. “As healthcare gets more demanding, we need the best and brightest to choose healthcare careers. We want to get them acquainted with all the opportunities.”

A participant in high-energy Ironman competitions, Thomas has encouraged others to pursue fitness by partnering with community trail-building groups through the Colorado Plateau Mountain Bike Trail Association, and he's actively supported Girls on the Run, aimed at introducing girls to running.

“Anything we can do to support fitness, health, health education, whether it's toward diabetes—we're very active in diabetes education—we search those things out,” Thomas says. “We have three daughters that we're glad are active, healthy young ladies. Girls on the Run is a great organization that gets girls out exercising. In Grand Junction, one of our biggest assets is our outdoor biking and hiking trail system. It's one of our best recruitment tools.”

To extend primary-care services, Thomas has established clinics throughout the community. He's also directly contracted with local employers to provide supplemental care, beyond their traditional health insurance benefits. For one employer, the local school district, the program has reached more than 600 employees within the first three months of their contract, lowering the district's healthcare costs by an estimated 20%.

In addition, consumer preference surveys conducted for Community Hospital by Professional Research Consultants showed a rise in respondents who were “very familiar” with the hospital from 26.7% to 31.3% between 2010 and 2012, and in those who were “somewhat familiar” from 46.2% to 55.5%. Those “not at all familiar” dropped from 27% to 13.2% in the same time period.

“We want people, when they think about healthcare, to think about us,” Thomas says. “We worked together with businesses to establish these clinics so employees would have access to primary care. We don't want those folks waiting until it's a problem and then showing up at the emergency room.”

Thomas has done an outstanding job reaching out to area employers and educating them about how the healthcare system works, says Jon Maraschin, board member at Community Hospital and executive director of the Business Incubator Center. “We have gone to the school district and other businesses in the community to say, 'How can we lower your healthcare costs and provide higher quality?' ” Maraschin says. “We're trying to streamline the costs for people who need to be helped.”