Nadean Cacho

I had been at Kaiser Permanente two years when the partnership kicked off in 1997. I was one of 16 people hired to work for this new partnership as an LMP consultant. We visited and studied eight organizations around the country with partnerships. The level of instruction we got was priceless. At the time, I didn’t understand the magnitude and how groundbreaking this agreement really was. Our first project was opening the hospital in Baldwin Park, in Southern California, in partnership. We also went into the regions to talk about partnership and do trainings. There was lots of knocking on doors, since the regions didn’t know what we were doing. I was in that role until 2009, when I took my current job. The way I see my role now is, I can’t make things happen independent of other people. My role is to make sure I’m being a good example of a good partner. My joy comes in influencing how our managers communicate with labor partners. How do we continue to genuinely try to partner when things get tough?