PORT ANGELES — Two experienced candidates are running for a vacant position on the seven-member Olympic Medical Center board of commissioners.
Candidates John Miles, 79, and Phil Edin, 67, have filed to run for the vacant OMC District 3, Position 2 commissioner’s spot.
Both have experience on hospital boards.
Miles
Miles, 79, is a retired doctor who has lived in the Port Angeles area for 10 years.
Miles practiced medicine and worked in medical administration before moving to the North Olympic Peninsula.
He served on the Kaiser Permanente Board of Directors in Los Angeles for 12 years.
“I’m still very interested in medicine,” he said.
“I’ve wanted to be a part of the community, so I’ve been on three boards here,” he said.
Miles has served as board president for the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society, the Fine Arts Center Board of Trustees and the Friends of the Library Board.
“I enjoyed that, and now this came up,” Miles said of the OMC commissioner’s seat.
“My whole life, other than family and personal things, was medicine. I saw this as maybe a chance to work in medicine again.”
Miles and his wife live in a house he built along Freshwater Bay.
Edin
Edin, 67, was appointed to the Newberg, Ore., hospital board of commissioners by the City Council there.
He served on that board for 10 years before moving to Port Angeles with his wife about three years ago.
“I moved here during the crisis when Virginia Mason pulled out,” Edin said, referring to the 2005 beginning of the transition to Olympic Medical Physicians.
“I saw how the community struggled, and the board and the doctors were trying to resolve that issue.
“I wished I could have helped, but there was no opportunity to do so.
“I’d like to contribute my expertise to helping the medical community in Port Angeles.”
Edin is a former CEO of a technology company in Portland.
Former Commissioner Gary Smith resigned from the District 3 (west of central Port Angeles), Position 2 seat last month.
Incumbents Arlene Engel, John Nutter, Jim Cammack and Jim Leskinovitch have each filed for re-election to their OMC commissioner seats.
None of those positions are being contested.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
