Setting the Standard
Auxiliary President Accomplishes Series of “Firsts”

When the St. Luke’s Auxiliary presidency changed hands in late June last year, incoming president Edgar Vesga, 36, established several “firsts” for this position. The first Hispanic president the auxiliary has ever had in its 48-year existence. The first president to concurrently hold a full-time job while taking on the task of the auxiliary presidency. The first president (in the last decade) to be under age 40. The first to have their license to sell life and health insurance and investment securities. And, the first president to speak four languages: English, Spanish, Italian and German.

Pam Lemp, director of Volunteer Services, is the first to tell you that Vesga is eminently well qualified for the position.

“Edgar’s been involved in all aspects of the auxiliary from service to fund raising to special events, and his enthusiasm for the services provided by our auxiliary is contagious,” she says.

Vesga, who works as an international attaché with Texas Children’s Hospital, has accomplished several objectives during his presidency.

“One of the things I’m most proud to report from this year is the fact that our auxiliary raised $1 million for St. Luke’s Episcopal Health Charities’ Capital Campaign, which benefits the new Patient Care Center,” says Vesga. “Now that St. Luke’s Community Medical Center is opening in the Woodlands, there is and will continue to be a greater need for volunteers. “

Vesga has the background to win people over to his ideas for the auxiliary. While working for MetLife Insurance Company, he increased sales revenues for the company’s Memorial-area branch and developed the Hispanic market for the organization’s Houston and San Antonio offices.

It obviously doesn’t hurt that he can communicate in four languages. He learned English and Spanish while growing up in Columbia. He mastered Italian because of a desire to communicate with Italian volunteers in their native tongue. And he learned German for a chemistry course.

Vesga, who has also worked as a data management consultant at St. Luke’s, first became familiar with the hospital in 1985 when he was taking a psychology class at the University of Houston that required volunteer work.

“They wanted us to experience what people do and how they behave in a healthcare environment,” recalled Vesga. “My first volunteer task, however, almost caused me to change my mind about volunteering here because I was assigned to the emergency department where I witnessed a very stressful trauma case, and I wasn’t sure I was cut out for hospital work. Fortunately, my professor convinced me to give it some more time, and I’m grateful he did.”

During his six-year stint as a consultant at St. Luke’s, Vesga assisted on all facets of international business development, including creation of the Spanish Internet site for the International Patient Center, serving as a liaison between the hospital and some of the international insurance providers, and creating a database management system to service prospective patients.

Vesga’s hospital-based international marketing and business background has not, however, been limited to St. Luke’s. He has served as a consultant for New York-Presbyterian Hospital – The University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell. This consulting opportunity gave him a chance to identify that organization’s international patient markets and train patient liaisons in various computer programs that positively impacted revenues and patient satisfaction.

“I’ve had the opportunity to see how auxiliaries function in hospitals in California, Florida, Texas and New York, and I honestly believe this is the best auxiliary in the country,” explains Vesga. “We’re so organized, we do such diverse work for so many different departments; people just don’t realize how crucial we are to the hospital, and yet I still feel strongly that there is much more work that can be done. There is such a great need to help people and our auxilians have so many skills that can be tapped into to make this an even better health care facility, that I remain excited about expanding St. Luke’s Auxiliary.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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