Beach Cities Health District CEO Susan Burden to step down in October
Susan Burden, CEO of the Beach Cities Health District, has elected to step down from her position effective Oct. 31. Photo via Twitter.com/@smburden
Beach Cities Health District CEO Susan Burden is calling it a career after 12 years, the organization announced on Monday. Burden plans to formally notify the Health District’s Board of Directors of her contract non-renewal request at the Board’s March 23 meeting. She would formally step down at her contract’s end on Oct. 31.
“It’s hard to believe that people actually do leave here, but after 12 years, I think it’s time,” Burden said, saying that 2016 is a good time for the community health organization. “It’s doing a great job, and I think there’s a whole step up it can go and do even more. That’ll be the next CEO’s job.”
Now, Burden plans to focus on one of her other great passions: Travel. “I was bitten by the international bug,” she said, “but things would come up, and I couldn’t go on trips because I was working.” Now, she plans to spend “doing the things I love to do,” with her family, or on the road. However, Burden will leave a door open to volunteer, or to work on health projects “here and there” on a part-time, limited basis.
Burden, who was hired by the preventative health organization in 2004, has overseen a significant period of growth for the Health District, most visibly with BCHD’s affiliation with the Blue Zones Project.
“I think Susan really brought in with her a focus on evidence-based programming — it was important in her vision, and she trained the rest of us in focusing on the evidence,” said Kerianne Lawson, director of Lifespan Services at BCHD.
“Blue Zones is the best example of that vision, with the Well-Being index giving us numbers on what’s on as well as what’s improving — we’re then able to develop programs based on that,” Lawson said.
Beach Cities Health District measurables have also shown significant impacts on the youngest Beach Cities residents. Through BCHD’s LiveWell Kids program, childhood obesity has dropped from 20 percent of Redondo Beach elementary school-aged children in 2004 to nine percent today.
“Not coincidentally, LiveWell Kids launched in 2004, her first year, when they saw a trend in Redondo’s kindergarten through fifth grade students — childhood obesity was going up, and she and the board said ‘not on our watch, that’s not going to happen,’” said BCHD spokesperson Eric Garner.
The 2013 Gallup Well Being Index found a nearly 14 percent decrease in obese or overweight adults in the Beach Cities from 2010, and an overall increase in key well-being indicators. Smoking has also dropped in Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo by 28 percent since 2010 as well. Further drops are expected to be seen in the coming weeks, when Gallup’s 2016 Well Being Index report is released.
Burden has announced her decision so early to give the Board of Directors “more than adequate time to do a good search,” she said. “That gives a lot of time to see where we want to go next — the search for a top executive can take six to nine months, and I’d like to be here.”
Jane Diehl, the Chair of BCHD’s Board of Directors, believes that she and her colleagues have their work cut out for them. “I believe she has created this really great place, which gives us a lot of people to pick from — but to replace her, well, I don’t know about that,” Diehl said. “She’s well thought-of, people know her, she has a great reputation — people know that this is a great act to follow.”
But Burden believes that praise for her actions is not just her own. “None of these organizations rotate on just one person, so I don’t think about my legacy — between the board, myself, the staff and our volunteers, it takes a group to really create a legacy,” she said.
“If I could contribute to knitting all of these things together, then I’m a good knitter, right?”