The following article originally appeared in the 2009 Winter issue of Hometown Magazine.
As the CEO/Administrator of Southampton Memorial Hospital in Franklin, David Fuller jokingly refers to himself as a very responsible person. “If anything goes wrong around here, I’m responsible,” he says with a laugh.
As the CEO/Administrator of Southampton Memorial Hospital in Franklin, David Fuller jokingly refers to himself as a very responsible person. “If anything goes wrong around here, I’m responsible,” he says with a laugh.
And managing the operations of a 221-bed hospital that has over 400 employees who provide services to acute and long-term care patients undoubtedly comes with its share of challenges. But Fuller is well equipped to handle whatever the day-to-day operations throw his way. “My primary responsibility to try to keep this train on the tracks,” says David with a hint of a drawl that is a testament to his Deep South heritage. “I continually strive to improve our systems with the key leadership in the organization and I work with the medical staff at the hospital to expand and improve upon the service we provide the community. It’s all about figuring out where we are going from a long-range perspective and planning our organization’s business so we can best meet the needs of the patients and the communities we serve.”
Fuller, who has been with Community Health Systems (the parent company of Southampton Memorial) for over 10 years, has only been in Franklin for a year now, but finds many similarities to the small town in Mississippi where he was raised. “I grew up in a small community like Franklin during a generation where my dad really viewed his relationship with his local banker just like you would value your relationship with your local doctor,” says David. “If he needed something, he would call his banker and they would work it out. It was all about the relationship. That’s what I like about community hospitals like Southampton Memorial—being able to connect with the community and our customers and having real relationships. When you have those kind of relationships, things become more personal and I believe you can really make more of a difference. And that’s how I’ve tried to craft my professional commitment to our communities.”
Building relationships is also what brought David to Bronco. “When relocating like I did a year ago, I was in a position where I owned a home in one place and I was trying to buy a house here,” he explains. “So I was trying to concoct these somewhat unusual financial deals and what’s funny is, often times when you go to the bigger financial institutions and say, ‘here’s what I’d like to do,’ they look at you like, ‘you can’t do that.’ I have found in my career when you approach someone who is local, they’re more willing to say, ‘yeah, we can probably help you with that. And that’s exactly what Bronco did for me. Everything worked out as smoothly as possible.
“The one thing I have always been impressed by is that every time I have an occasion to interact with people from Bronco, I always get that good, old-fashioned commitment to service,” David continues. “It’s still about the relationship and what can we do to make this work.”
A self-proclaimed “glass half full kind of guy,” David is excited about his new home here and all of the possibilities that lie ahead. “I really do look forward to being a part of this community with Bronco as we face the challenges ahead of us, in whatever form they come. There is a lot of opportunity for us all out there and I’m really excited about where we’re going.”
