Devin Huntley, chief operating officer at St. Joseph Medical Center, steps into the same role 14 miles south on July 15.

“I can’t wait to get down there and get after it,” said Huntley Tuesday. While it’s a different healthcare setting, it’s also very familiar – in part because of his close friendship with St. Luke Community Healthcare CEO Steve Todd.

The two have been friends and colleagues for more than 15 years, dating back to Huntley’s tenure at Community Medical Center in Missoula, where he also served as COO. They also play hockey on the same team, traveling to Missoula each week from fall through spring, and both sit on the board of directors for the Mission Valley Ice Arena.

“He's a great teammate – fun-loving and a hard worker. And I think we play well together in hockey,” Todd said. “Professionally, I'd say the same.”

Their bond was also strengthened by going through the COVID pandemic, a fraught experience for all healthcare providers.

Huntley recalls that at the onset, the predictions were particularly daunting. “We thought we might need four to six ventilators going at once and we actually made plans to convert all of our exam rooms into patient rooms,” he recalls. There was talk of a potential need for the 25-bed hospital to serve up to 80 patients a time.

Healthcare providers including St. Joe, St. Luke, Tribal Health and Logan Health all pulled together, pooling resources and expertise.

“Certainly, early on, it was one of the most stressful situations that either of us have ever been in,” Huntley said of the two administrators. “I think that really formed a bond that is unbreakable.”

The two hospitals have continued to compete and collaborate, while keeping patient service at the center of their respective organizations.

“Competition in healthcare is great – I think it helps keep the quality up,” says Huntley. “But there's smart competition and then there's not smart competition. And I think Steve and I have a relationship where we've always said, let's do the smart competition.”

Todd notes that St. Joseph and St. Luke administrators have worked together successfully for years, but agrees that the pandemic fortified that relationship.

“Everybody really needed to pitch in together,” he says. “And certainly I think the kind of bridge-building that was done during COVID will continue.”

Huntley, a native of Missoula, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in healthcare administration. He arrived at St. Joseph in 2018 after having worked in large Army hospitals and at Community Medical Center and says his tenure in Polson opened his eyes to the first-rate care that rural hospitals offer.

“People don't realize the quality of care that we provide in these small communities,” he said. “We do almost everything they do in the big cities, and we do it just as well and often, I think, we do it better.”

He also praises his colleagues at Providence. “I can’t say enough about the quality of people I work with at St. Joe’s. They’re amazingly caring, compassionate, skilled professionals.”

“They have taught me, I'm sure, more than I have taught them in the last five and a half years,” he added.

Still, Huntley says he’s looks forward to working for a more nimble, community-based organization. Providence, headquartered in Seattle, has around 120,000 employees and owns 52 hospitals and more than 1,000 clinics across the western United States. According to Huntley, decisions made at the corporate headquarters in Seattle don’t always make sense at the local level.

St. Luke, on the other hand, is one of the few community-owned hospitals left in Montana; it owns clinics in St. Ignatius, Polson and Ronan and is overseen by a board of directors based entirely in the Mission Valley

 “And when you get a CEO like Steve, who's been doing this for a long time and who's really good at it, you're just way more able to impact the people we serve quicker,” Huntley said. “And, I think, oftentimes better just because you can make changes in five minutes versus five months.”

According to Bill Calhoun, who was recently hired as chief executive of Providence Montana, Huntley’s five years at St. Joseph have been productive, including his recent efforts to “tee up plans for major facility planning that is currently under discussion.”

In a memo announcing Huntley’s departure, dated June 12, Calhoun said he would be working with Huntley “to ensure a thoughtful and seamless transition.”

Meanwhile, the day-to-day operational oversight has been absorbed by Krissy Petersen, Montana Service Area Chief Nursing Officer, who is currently serving as St. Joe’s interim administrator. Calhoun said Monday that Providence is in the midst of determining “what site-based administrative leadership will look like.”

While the departure is bittersweet for Huntley, he’s also palpably excited about his new job.

“If you make every decision in healthcare with the patient and the safety and the quality of the care that you provide that patient as the number-one guiding principle, you're going to win every time,” Huntley said. “And I think Steve and I do that really well together.”