Tim Leeds Havre Daily News tleeds@havredailynews.com
The local hospital is showing a new face for public relations. Kathie Newell, after 18 years in the hospital's position, has left her job as marketing and public relations director for Northern Montana Hospital. Gina Barker has taken over in that position. “I cannot fill her shoes,” Barker said Friday about Newell. “I’m very fortunate to be coming in after someone who is so well-known and so wellliked in the community.” Newell, whose last day was June 30, said she is moving to Kansas City, Kan., to be with her husband, Pat Newell. “He received a nice promotion with (Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway) and he’s been down there since October,” Newell said. Barker, 52, said she will be working to provide information for the public and to promote events sponsored by Northern Montana Healthcare. “I want to get a consistent message out there of who we are and what we offer,” she said. Barker, who grew up in Southern California and moved to the Seattle area in 1979, moved to Whitefish in 1990 with her family after they vacationed in that area. Most recently, she spent two years publicizing the opening of North Valley Hospital in Whitefish and as public relations consultant for the City of Whitefish. She said about a year ago she moved to Tacoma, Wash., to be near her sons, Aaron, 24, and Zachary, 21, and worked for a large system of hospitals and clinics there, MultiCare Health Foundation. Barker said she soon decided she wanted to come back to Montana. “I’m just not a city girl any more,” she said. “I missed Montana and I missed Whitefish and I missed the people.” In Bremerton, Wash., and in Whitefish, Barker worked for some 20 years as an administrative assistant and project manager for a family-owned contracting business, which she says gives her many experiences similar to what she now does for Northern Montana Hospital. After her sons left home, she went back to college and received a bachelor’s degree in public relations and marketing from Marylhurst University, a small Catholic university in Portland, Ore. Following that she worked for North Valley Hospital and MultiCare Health Foundation before interviewing in Havre Barker said she interviewed in Livingston the same week and deciding to take the position here. She said she plans to be active in the community, As well as doing her work for the hospital, and has already joined the Ambassadors of the Havre Area Chamber of Commerce and is playing bass guitar for Montana Actors’ Theatre production of the musical “The Man of La Mancha” later this month. She said her job has two parts: presenting information to the public and also to work as a liaison between different people and parts of the hospital. “It’s really relationship management,” Barker said. She said her work with the public will include letting people know about the health care providers at Northern Montana Health Care “not just their services but as people” and about new and existing services at the hospital. “New high-tech things have been added and are still being added,” she said, “and, of course, there is the Sletten Cancer Center.” The Hi-Line Sletten Cancer Center, scheduled to be completed this fall, is being built in partnership between Northern Montana Health Care, the Northern Montana Health Care Foundation and the Sletten Cancer Institute in Great Falls. It will provide state-of-the-art cancer treatment for Montana residents from Chester to Glasgow, who typically have to travel to Great Falls or farther to receive treatment. Barker said she is pleased with her new position, and with the people at the hospital and the community. “This job is a really good fit for my experience and training,” she said. “I like to be on the Hi-Line. “I like Amtrak,” she added. “With gas prices, I think I made the right choice.”
