How she shines: I have spent more than 25 years in healthcare operations, with much of my career focused on elevating Environmental Services from a function often viewed simply as “housekeeping” into the essential patient safety, infection prevention, and operational discipline that it is.
Leadership and Teamwork: My leadership philosophy begins with the people doing the work. I have led large, diverse frontline workforces and multi-site healthcare operations, but I believe leadership is most meaningful when it creates opportunity for others. I focus heavily on mentoring, developing frontline employees, and building stronger supervisors, managers, and directors. I also work across traditional departmental boundaries, partnering with nursing, infection prevention, safety, facilities, sustainability, and hospital executives to solve problems collectively rather than in silos.
Technology and Innovation: I continually look for ways to bring evidence-based innovation into EVS. My work has included the implementation and evaluation of UV-disinfection technology, objective cleaning-verification tools, digital quality and patient-experience platforms, disposable microfiber systems, and new disinfectant technologies. Technology is valuable only when it improves safety, consistency, or the experience of the people providing and receiving care, so I emphasize implementation, education, and measurement rather than innovation for its own sake.
Sustainability: I advocate for environmental responsibility that can coexist with rigorous infection-prevention standards. My work includes initiatives involving regulated medical waste reduction and segregation, plastics reduction, recycling, reusable systems where appropriate, product lifecycle considerations, and collaboration with healthcare sustainability partners.
Community and Industry Advocacy: I believe advancing our profession requires contributing beyond one’s own organization. I serve as an ISSA State Advocacy Leader and participate in healthcare and environmental services industry councils, education initiatives, and professional organizations. I have contributed to conversations surrounding healthcare cleaning standards, infection prevention, workforce education, and sustainability, and I remain committed to strengthening the professional voice of EVS.
Development: I am equally committed to my own continued learning. I have pursued credentials spanning healthcare environmental management, Lean Six Sigma, and healthcare EVS and linen management, while remaining actively engaged with emerging research, technologies, and best practices.
What connects all of these areas is a simple belief: the people who clean and maintain healthcare environments are part of the patient-care team. My goal has been to make sure their work, development, and professional contributions are recognized accordingly.
Years in the industry: 25 years
Job responsibilities: As Vice President of Operations–Environmental Services for Aramark Healthcare+, I provide strategic and operational leadership for environmental services across the Penn Medicine region. I oversee multi-site operations, leadership development, financial performance, patient experience, regulatory readiness, infection prevention practices, quality assurance, workforce strategy, and continuous improvement. I partner closely with hospital executives, nursing, infection prevention, safety, facilities, sustainability, and frontline teams to ensure EVS supports a safe, clean, and welcoming environment for patients, visitors, and staff.
My role also includes advancing new technologies and evidence-based cleaning practices, strengthening training and leadership accountability, improving operational performance, and developing sustainable solutions that reduce waste while maintaining rigorous healthcare standards. I lead and support teams responsible for delivering environmental services across complex acute-care and ambulatory healthcare environments.
Career path: My career in healthcare began more than 25 years ago as a second-shift Environmental Services Supervisor in a hospital. I didn’t begin with a plan to become an executive; I found a profession where I realized I could make a difference and genuinely loved the work.
I worked my way up through increasingly responsible leadership positions, learning the business from the frontline forward. Along the way, I became deeply interested in infection prevention, patient safety, operations, workforce development, and the science behind creating safe healthcare environments. I continued my education, pursued professional credentials, and became involved in industry organizations so I could keep learning—and eventually help others learn as well.
My career has taken me from leading individual hospital teams to managing complex healthcare operations, developing national healthcare programs, and now providing executive leadership across a major academic health system.
What has never changed is my connection to where I started. I understand the work because I grew up professionally alongside the people who do it every day. More than 25 years later, I still love this profession, I am still learning, and I still believe Environmental Services provides an extraordinary opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives.
Best advice received: Two pieces of advice have stayed with me throughout my career: be true to who you are and never believe there is a glass ceiling.
The first taught me that I didn’t need to change who I was to become a leader. I could lead with empathy, speak directly, care deeply about people, and still hold high expectations.
The second has been especially important as a woman in the cleaning industry. Historically, women have not always been equally represented in the industry’s most senior leadership positions. I have broken through that barrier repeatedly throughout my career, in large part because I refused to see it as a limit on how far I could go.
I hope my career also shows other women—particularly those beginning in frontline or supervisory roles—that where you start does not determine where you can finish.
Fun fact: People might be surprised to learn how much of my life outside of work is still connected to this profession. I truly care about what we do, and over the years, it has woven itself into nearly every fabric of my life.
In my downtime, I write about the industry, serve on committees and boards, study emerging practices, and advocate for change. Most importantly, I advocate for the people who do the hardest part of this work—the frontline cleaning professionals. Their work is physically demanding, frequently underrecognized, and absolutely essential. I want them to have a stronger voice, greater opportunities, and the professional recognition they deserve.