 When you’re the patient and you show up with a health problem, you want the best healthcare available that will give you the right diagnosis,” says Jim Gattis, Assistant Treasurer of the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System’s (SVMHS) Board of Directors. Gattis, born and bred in Salinas, was appointed to the five-member board to fill the term of Tom Mill, who retired earlier this year after 15 years of distinguished service.
“The Board’s three major goals are: to continue to be financially successful; to plan for future growth; and to expand programs into the community,” says Gattis. “Our role, which is one of oversight, means we’re looking out for the people in the hospital district. We know how our decisions affect the hospital and the delivery of healthcare to the community. The hospital is run quite well and our medical services are superb. If we do our job—and we will—we’ll provide our patients with what they want and need.”
A successful businessman and an active family man, Gattis is perhaps the preeminent volunteer fundraiser in Salinas history for major nonprofit entities. He has raised millions of dollars for charity through the California International Air Show in Salinas, of which he was the founding president 25 years ago, and for Cherry’s Jubilee, the annual fundraising event he created in 1992 for the Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital Foundation. He was also instrumental in the $16 million fundraising campaign for the National Steinbeck Center and Valley of the World that opened in 1998 and 2002 respectively.
As a commercial businessman, Gattis buys, restores and maintains old buildings that have historic interest in Salinas, among them the Grain Tower (once the Associated Seed Company), 60 West Market Street. His divergent business background includes once owning and operating a hair salon and two men’s clothing shops. He quips, “My current business is Jim Gattis Investment Properties, the salon business was Jim Gattis Hair Dressing and the clothing stores were Jim Gattis Men’s Wear. Do you see a pattern here?”
Always his own boss, he made an exception when he discovered his love of flying. Between the hair salon and the menswear shops, he worked for Air Trails, Inc., a charter aircraft company, and taught aviation classes at Hartnell College. Flying single-engine aircraft naturally led to his key role in founding the California International Air Show in Salinas. That’s when Gattis discovered his affinity for successful fundraising.
Gattis admits he had to think it over when asked to join the SVMHS Board of Directors. “I was slowing down to enjoy my family. Then, this opportunity came up and I was told it would be challenging and fascinating, and it is. Accumulatively, in this one particular entity of the hospital, everything I’ve learned in all the other parts of my life all come together. The intensity is surprising with 2,000 employees, unions, working in a medical community in a competitive environment with government regulations and the challenge of keeping on top of medical disciplines, technology and patient services. We’re dealing with changing demographics and we’re anticipating facilities and construction to keep pace.”
 He’s also giving back to his very own community. Jim Gattis’ parents moved here from Arkansas during the Dust Bowl in the 1930s and when he later read John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, he identified with the families struggling to make a living from the soil. “I’ve been very fortunate. For my background and what I came from, I have options I never dreamed I would have.”
Among these options are worldwide travels. In 1990, for example, he and his wife Jeri, a respected leader in the Salinas community, took a one-year sabbatical and lived and traveled in Europe. They recently spent three weeks in China. His favorite Gattis get-away spot is their home in Sun River, near Bend, Oregon. “We try to bring our four grown kids and their families, which include eight grandchildren, together twice a year. We see each other here, of course, but we also enjoy getting away,” he says.
Gattis reads fiction and nonfiction and in fact read every word published by John Steinbeck when he was raising funds for the National Steinbeck Center. “I listen to the music I grew up with, and that’s jazz and Sinatra and Fitzgerald and I enjoy classical music. My perfect day would include pleasant weather, working in my office through noon, lunch with a good friend, then taking the afternoon off to walk or kayak and spending time with Jeri and the family.”
His motivation? “I’m motivated by challenge. I’ve probably spent 75 percent of my time in nonprofit activity since 1981, which was the beginning of the Air Show. Nonprofit activity has been the most challenging and rewarding thing I’ve done in my life. Probably my greatest challenges are things I didn’t make any money at.”
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Jim Gattis