Barney Speight to Retire from State Government

August 19, 2010 – Less than a year after returning to state government, Barney Speight plans to retire on Dec. 31.

 

Speight joined the Oregon Health Authority as director of healthcare purchasing on Sept. 14. In that capacity he’s been in charge of strategizing how to combine the medical services of nearly 850,000 Oregonians including state employees, school teachers, Medicaid recipients and seniors,

 

“I’ve given everything I could,” said Speight who turns 65 on May 12. “And, I don’t really see an opportunity for making a sustainable contribution in what’s going to be a tumultuous session next year. I’m not physically, mentally or spiritually up for that.”

 

Working with the Oregon Health Authority to help build a new agency has been an immensely rewarding experience, he said.

 

“It’s been a massive undertaking, building two agencies that co-exist with shared services and is historically unprecedented in the era of fiscal limitations,” Speight said. “At the same time there’ve been exciting opportunities relative to federal reform. It’s been a real roller coaster. But now it’s time for an old fat bald guy to go to the sidelines and go fishing to see how many worms he can drown.”

 

Once he leaves state government, Speight intends to relearn how to have fun. “I’m really looking forward to disengaging from my professional career and, as they say euphemistically, spend more time with my family. There are a lot of things I’ve deferred in my life that I’d like to explore.”

 

Speight gave up a position at ODS as managing director of medical professional relations to rejoin state government – earlier he had been administrator of the Office of Oregon Health Policy and Research.

 

In Speight’s 30-year-plus career, he’s worked for nearly every sector in the healthcare system including stints at Regence BlueCross BlueShield, the Oregon Medical Association, Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital, Kaiser Permanente and the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems.