Joanne Beasley, MBA, RHIA has recently been hired as the new Health Information Management Director at Magruder Hospital.

She comes to Magruder with over 10 years experience in healthcare.  Most recently she was the Director of Health Information Management at Samaritan Regional Health System in Mansfield, and prior to that she was the Manager of Health Information Services and the Privacy Officer at Wooster Community Hospital.  She has experience with the Cerner digital software that Magruder implemented in 2010.

A team of Lake Erie Shores and Islands area tourism industry representatives joined colleagues from the Ohio Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus, The Ohio Travel Association and the Ohio Hotel & Lodging Association on March 20th for Ohio Tourism Legislative Day 2013.  

Participants included Joan Van Offeren, Dawn Weinhardt and Larry Fletcher from Lake Erie Shores & Islands, Mike and Judy Tann from Captain Montague’s B&B, and Maris Brenner from Kalahari. Meetings were held with Senator Randy Gardner and Representative Chris Redfern, both of whom reaffirmed their strong support of Ohio’s tourism industry.

Leadership Ottawa County (LOC) began their March 13 class at the Davis - Besse Training Facility north of Oak Harbor. This month's topic was business and economic development.  Dan Hartnett provided a behind-the-scenes look at the Nuclear Operations Training at Davis-Besse.  Class members observed operator training in the control room simulator. The training includes how to respond to any unusual event that might trigger a shutdown in an emergency situation. 

The class then traveled to the Ottawa County Transportation Agency (OCTA) where director Bill Lowe and Diane Schimming provided  information on day-to-day operations of public transportation in Ottawa County followed by a tour of the new facility. Participants were made aware of the diversity of transportation needs in the county.

In Ottawa County in the 1960's, when women of the baby boomer era were in school and deciding what they wanted to be when they grew up, the most common career path was housewife or farm wife. If a woman wanted to or needed to work outside the home, perhaps until she married and started a family, or if she ended up as an "old maid", jobs as secretary or maid or waitress or beautician or sales clerk were options. If she did well in school, saved enough of her babysitting money and if her parents were forward-thinking and financially able to provide for college, she might consider becoming a teacher or nurse. Women were becoming more common as bank tellers and there were a few women in real estate, including Ann Bolte, matriarch of Bolte Real Estate. Once a woman settled into a job, she tended to stay in that job for life. Women seldom referred to a job as a career.

The Ohio Small Business Development Center at Terra State Community College is offering a free, two-hour seminars, “Small Business Basics,” that will answer questions about starting, buying or expanding a small business. 

The next seminar is Wednesday, April 3, 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at Ottawa County Improvement Corporation conference room, 8043 W. S.R. 163, Oak Harbor.