Louise Kokotailo retires

Please join us in congratulating Louise Kokotailo, liaison to the VCH Board of Directors, who is retiring on November 14th after 37 years with VCH and its predecessor organizations. Along the way, Louise’s contributions have impacted all of us as she supported 6 CEOs, 13 Board Chairs and many Senior Executive Team members in their work.

Louise started her career in healthcare at Vancouver General Hospital, supporting the directors in Diagnostic Neurophysiology and the International Federation of the Society of Electroencephalographers and Clinical Neurophysiologists with their research work – which at one time included the longest standing grant issued by the Medical Research Council of Canada. Louise then moved to VGH Administration to work as an Executive Secretary for the Vice-President, Operations and later for the President’s office and the Board of Trustees. During this time, there were many changes in health care, including the consolidation of Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre and the formation of VCH. With change came new rewards and working relationships which Louise embraced and “cultivated into life-long friendships with many wonderful people in health care,” she said. In her current role as the Board liaison, Louise has been supporting the VCH Board and Senior Executive Team in coordinating their many activities and meetings. Her compassion, patience, clear communication and intuition in dealing with the public and stakeholders will be missed by all of us.

“To all my friends and colleagues at VCH, thank you for being there for me through thick and thin, through the challenging times, easy times and fun times. With you, the past 37 years have been a joy in life that I will always treasure,” said Louise.

In retirement, Louise plans to pursue her passions for travel, golf, gardening, rock climbing and will be spending more time with her family. We wish to thank Louise for all of her hard work and dedication to VCH and wish her the best in her future endeavors. You will be missed but never forgotten!