People & Community
PERSONALITY
The mission she chose to accept
PHOTO BY MICHAEL LOPEZ
Bakersfield Heart Hospital’s new president, CEO fulfills long-held dream
Michelle Oxford
By Diana Greenlee
M
ichelle Oxford is a woman with a mission. The 41-year-old executive was appointed president and CEO for the Bakersfield Heart Hospital last month. Oxford’s been serving as interim CEO and COO since August. She started with the Heart Hospital in 2012, serving as vice president of business development and support services and then VP of business development and operations, respectively. A Bakersfield native and South High grad with a glowing smile and warm demeanor, Oxford is the quintessential local girl who’s made good. Today, she oversees a staff of about 350 employees in what has come to be known as Bakersfield’s
76
Bakersfield Life Magazine
January 2016
premier heart hospital. For Oxford, it is the fruition of a long-held dream. “I told myself I wanted to run a hospital,” she said. “It was a lofty goal.” This executive is driven. She graduated from CSUB with honors, earning a degree in psychology and then went to work as an underwriter and career track coordinator for State Farm. Four years later she took a position as a pharmaceutical sales representative for AstraZeneca. Oxford said she’d considered enrolling in law school, but finances thwarted her plans. Instead, she applied with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was admitted to its phase I training program. Then in 2008, she and her husband of 13 years, Scott, a Medtronic
consultant, were expecting their second child, and Oxford had an opportunity to move to Mercy and Memorial hospitals as a physician liaison. And then the letter came. The FBI advised Oxford she passed phase II of the selection process and was offered a conditional appointment as a special agent. She was ecstatic, but with a new baby coming, she said the timing wasn’t right. “Life just changed my story,” she said. “It was my proudest moment but haunts me the most.” The executive went on to pursue an MBA with Western Governors University and joined Bakersfield Heart Hospital in 2012. She spearheaded its Women’s Heart Center, the Center for Wound Healing, the Brain and Spine Center and the Cardiac Rehabilitation Center.