Chris Van Gorder
Scripps Health President and Chief Executive Officer

Chris Van Gorder, Scripps Health President and CEO, is among San Diego’s leaders when it comes to emergency preparedness. Scripps Health is one of the region’s first responders to crises, with four emergency departments, two trauma centers and two urgent-care centers in the county. Under Van Gorder’s leadership, Scripps Health created an office of disaster preparedness in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. This department is staffed full time to establish disaster response strategies, procedures and training for staff across the Scripps Health system, and also trains with its first-responder counterparts on the local, state and federal levels.

Van Gorder also created the Scripps Medical Response Team, which has been deployed at home and out of state to assist disaster survivors. In 2007, SMRT went to Rancho Bernardo at the request of the San Diego Fire Department to set up a mobile field clinic for those affected by the wildfires. In 2005, 78 SMRT members spent three weeks in Houston providing free medical services to Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Subsequently, the California Emergency Medical Services Authority invited Scripps Health to develop the administrative processes and procedures for running the state’s three new mobile field hospitals, which would be dispatched in times of disaster.

As a former police officer, Van Gorder is no stranger to hands-on community service. He currently serves as a reserve commander in the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department Search and Rescue Unit and is also an emergency medical technician. Van Gorder is a volunteer CPR instructor for the Red Cross and trains hundreds of individuals in San Diego every year. Additionally, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed Van Gorder to the California Commission on Emergency Medical Services.