PORT ANGELES – Olympic Medical Center’s Board of Commissioners announced to employees on Friday that Darryl Wolfe, chief operating officer, has agreed to act as interim CEO when Eric Lewis retires on May 1.

Lewis, who served as CEO for 13 years, made his announcement to staff a week ago. He stopped by the Todd Ortloff Show on Wednesday and talked about his reasons for retiring and what comes next.

“I’ve been talking to the board. My board was not surprised, but my board of course had hoped I would stay a few more years. But I had my birthday on January 13th, and I just decided it was really time to refocus my life and slow down a little bit, because being a hospital CEO can be a lot of 50-60 hour weeks. I’m glad I did it for as long as I did but it is tiring. No question.”

Lewis says that he will soon be a grandfather and would like to have more personal time, but he also wants to take advantage of his experience to continue to work for better health care for all.

“I hope to improve my golf game, which, anybody who’s seen me golf is saying that’s going to be pretty easy. And then I will look how I can contribute, probably in the advocacy area. I don’t want to be a lobbyist. That’s slightly above a hospital administrator. But what happens in Washington DC and Olympia to health care is a big deal. It affects us all and I want to see if we can’t have a bipartisan way of stabilizing and improving the Healthcare System across Washington.”

The Board anticipates the selection process for chief executive officer to take four to six months, and Lewis is confident that position he’s vacating will attract some good candidates.

“Well, we’ll have a lot of applicants, no question. But there’s a lot of great people out there. I think people go into rural healthcare for the right reasons. And OMC’s a great hospital to join, and I think they’ll take a look at Olympic Medical Center and our beautiful community and the Olympic mountains, and the water, and we’ll have a lot of applicants.”