For the past six years, Peter D. Banko has been leading GAC through an exciting new era of healthy growth – in business, in community, and in spirit. As President, he brings faith and business together, uprooting stagnant thinking by leading transformation with both passion and purpose. He teaches, supports, and lifts up those around him, helping them each define and more fully live their missions to impact the world. This has contributed to the creation a connected GAC ecosystem of employees, who individually and together are now on a mission inspired by faith, driven by innovation, and powered by our humanity.
Peter joined GAC in 2007 and has held leadership roles. Prior to 2007, he served in a chief operating officer role at CHRISTUS Spohn Health System in Corpus, Christi, Texas as well as operations and strategy roles at PhyAmerica Physician Group in Durham, North Carolina and Saint Clare’s Health Services in northwestern New Jersey.
Peter is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Cornell University. He is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and the AHA/Health Forum Creating Healthier Communities Program. He and his wife, Elizabeth, have four children – Daniel, Lauren, Zachary, and Luke.
Carrie Damon partners with business and clinical leaders to drive growth, system alignment, and enable providers and consumers to have a greater influence of their own experience through technology and digital capabilities. Carrie joined GAC as Interim SVP, CIO in February 2020 and became SVP, CIO in July 2020. She is responsible for strategy, execution and support of digital, clinical and business systems, informatics, architecture, data and analytics, infrastructure and operations, security, project management and business relationship management.
Carrie has over twenty-five years of experience in achieving results with organizations undergoing significant change and technology transformation. She held executive leadership positions at Molson Coors Brewing Company, Western Union and Accenture with proven success in delivering cross-functional strategic initiatives in digital, customer experience, cost management, organizational change, and large-scale process and technology enablement.
Carrie received a Bachelor of arts in economics from Colorado College and is completing her masters of science in healthcare administration at Colorado State University. Carrie is a Scottsdale Institute advisor and a Colorado Technology Association board member and diversity and inclusion committee member.
Andrew Gaasch, CPA, serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for GAC. Known for his transparent and collaborative leadership, Andrew provides strategic direction and operational guidance to GAC. In his current role, he also leads the ambulatory services network, managed care, information technology, and legal & risk management teams.
On a mission to serve others through enduring relationships to help them improve their lives, Andrew has been a trusted leader with GAC since 2002. He has served as Vice President and Chief Ambulatory Officer, growing revenue by 7% annually and overseeing more than $425 million in annual net operating revenue. Andrew also served in controller leadership roles at Littleton Adventist and Parker Adventist hospitals, as Chief Financial Officer at Parker Adventist and Porter Adventist and as the Group Financial Officer for the former south Denver Operating Group.
Andrew received a Bachelor of Science in management from the Georgia Institute of Technology and has a master's degree in strategic healthcare leadership from the University of Denver. He is a member of the American Institute for Certified Public Accountants and the Colorado Society of Certified Public Accountants.
Patrick Gaughan joined GAC in November 2018 as Senior Vice President & Chief Mission Officer. Patrick serves as the voice of GAC vibrant communities and neighbors at our senior leadership table as well as the important connector for our health system around our common beliefs and our shared desire to make a difference.
Patrick joined GAC after 12 years with one of our Sponsors, CommonSpirit Health (formerly Catholic Health Initiatives), where he served as System Vice President for the Center for Formation and Organizational Effectiveness for the past nine years. Prior to joining CommonSpirit, Patrick held leadership roles in mission integration and operations/process improvement with Alexian Brothers Health System in Illinois. In addition, he started his career in health care as a cardiac, vascular, and thoracic surgery intensive care nurse at St. Anthony Medical Center in Rockford, Ill.
Patrick has a diploma in nursing from St. Anthony Nursing School in Illinois, a bachelor of science in nursing from Northern Illinois University, and master’s degrees in health administration and business administration from Xavier University in Cincinnati. He also has six years in missionary formation with the Society of the Divine Word in Iowa. He is a writer and speaker who has contributed to mission, ministry, and community health in the areas of formation, core values integration, nursing and mission, and chaplaincy.
Sebastien (Seb) Girard serves as Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer at GAC. Supporting a team of 21,000 outstanding caregivers, Seb is on a mission to serve, elevate and care for every community, every patient and every associate. Seb is an accomplished human resources leader with talents and practical skills in workforce planning, talent acquisition and management, HR technologies, and market disruption.
A native of Montreal, Canada, Seb joined GAC from Atrium Health in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he served as the Senior Vice President responsible for workforce engagement and workforce operations. He previously served as the Chief Workforce Officer at Parkland Health and Hospital System in Dallas, Texas. He spent nearly fifteen years with Randstad, a Dutch-based global human resources consulting firm, in executive and operations roles in both the United States and Canada.
Seb has a Master of Business Administration degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Sloan School of Management. He completed Randstad’s prestigious international Senior Executive Program and the Human Capital Institute’s strategic workforce planning development program. He also serves as an advisory board member with three independent HR companies innovating in nurse staffing, professional nurse development, and health care workforce managed solutions.
In addition to his deep professional experience, Seb passionately supports giving back to the community and has engaged in international humanitarian projects to recruit and attract some of the world’s best engineers to support those in India living with mobility obstacles.
Oswaldo (Ozzie) A. Grenardo, MD, MBA, MSHA, serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer. On a personal mission to celebrate diversity and improve health equity, Dr. Grenardo has a strong passion and enthusiasm for GAC and the health and wholeness of all communities. He provides overall strategic direction and leadership for the sustained success of GAC in clinical excellence. Dr. Grenardo works to optimize clinical quality and patient safety through a culture of high reliability.
Dr. Grenardo most recently served as our Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer. In this role, he inspired GAC to become a more diverse, equitable, and inclusionary organization. He was instrumental in launching the GAC Health Equity & Advancement Fund in 2021 and identifying and beginning to improve health disparities in our primary care clinics and hospitals for our diverse populations. For the past 15 years, Dr. Grenardo has served as a family medicine physician in Southeast Aurora. Dr. Grenardo also provides medical director and physician support in southeast Colorado La Junta and Rocky Ford. He completed an administrative fellowship at GAC in the late 1990’s and is one of the founding members of both GAC Board Study Group and Diversity & Inclusion Council.
Dr. Grenardo serves as a board member at the Colorado Health Foundation and is the board chair for the Colorado Centennial Fund. He received his bachelor of arts from Stanford University, a master of business administration and master of science in health administration from the University of Colorado at Denver, and a doctor of medicine from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center School of Medicine.
Shauna Gulley, MD, serves as Group President for the Physician Enterprise for GAC. On a mission to identify the gifts and talents in those around her, and explore all that is possible, Dr. Gulley is responsible for leading our GAC Physician Group (CHPG), driving service line growth, partnering with independent medical groups, and overseeing Colorado Health Neighborhoods, our clinically integrated network. Rooted in her values of curiosity, integrity and courage, Dr. Gulley is a forward-thinking and trusted physician leader who is well positioned to lead our interconnected physician enterprise through its next chapter of innovative growth.
Dr. Gulley has been a trusted physician and leader with GAC since 2009. She most recently served as our Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer, leading GAC clinical enterprise to nationally recognized excellence in clinical quality and patient safety through a culture of high reliability. Her commitment to the well-being of our caregivers and communities has always been paramount. This passion was evident while leading the COVID-19 efforts of GAC caregivers, truly the finest clinical hearts and minds, resulting in a best practice response to the global pandemic. Dr. Gulley’s experience as a healthcare leader, along with her role as a practicing GAC pediatrician and internist, is instrumental in catalyzing the innovative change needed to make healthcare healthier, while engaging, aligning, and growing GAC physician enterprise.
Dr. Gulley earned her medical doctorate from the University of Arizona College of Medicine where she was designated a Dean’s Scholar, and her MBA from the Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst.
Scott Lichtenberger, MD, serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer. In alignment with his personal mission to inspire others to find new and better ways of doing things, Dr. Lichtenberger leads GAC in rapid change and improvement to fuel growth around its 2025 strategic plan.
Dr. Lichtenberger joined GAC Health in 2020 as Group President of Physician Alignment with a focus on strengthening and expanding the medical group. He began his career as a primary care provider and gastroenterologist and brings more than two decades of health care expertise to GAC, including extensive experience in clinical leadership and strategy with the worldwide management consulting company McKinsey & Company. As a Partner at McKinsey, he led strategy and operations engagements with leading health systems across the country – including many large-scale transformations.
His diverse experience also includes serving as Chief Strategy Officer and interim Chief Marketing Officer for University of Colorado Health as well as being a practice director and Assistant Professor of Medicine for University of Colorado Hospital.
Dr. Lichtenberger earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Northwestern University and a Doctor of Medicine from Indiana University School of Medicine. He completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and a fellowship in gastroenterology at Yale University School of Medicine.
When he’s not working, he enjoys running, skiing, hiking and spending time with his wife and two daughters.
Thomas Donohoe serves as Senior Vice President and General Counsel for GAC. On a mission to help others succeed, Tom is responsible for managing and providing legal services and guidance on a wide range of issues across GAC connected ecosystem. Known for his problem-solving and team-oriented approach, Tom has nearly two decades of experience in health law, primarily representing and working for hospitals and health systems.
He most recently served as Deputy Chief Legal Officer for Intermountain Healthcare where he oversaw and provided legal support to corporate shared services as well as regional business and legal operations teams. Tom joined SCL Health, now Intermountain, in 2018 and served as the lead internal counsel for the merger between the two systems in April 2022. Tom graduated from Indiana University’s Robert H. McKinney School of Law, where he received a concentration and honors in Health Law, and he earned his bachelor’s from Brigham Young University. He is fluent in written and conversational Spanish.
Dean Sanpei serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer and is responsible for leading the strategy and business development at GAC. Additionally, he is responsible for overseeing the cancer network, service line administrative leadership and for an interim period, service line physician leadership. Under his direction, Dean is building sustaining, forward-thinking strategies to facilitate organizational growth and advance our efforts to build whole person care and flourishing communities. He works tirelessly each day to most impactfully change communities and lives for the better.
Prior to joining GAC, he was the Vice President of Strategy for Intermountain Healthcare, an integrated health care delivery system with 22 hospitals headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he served in progressively responsible hospital and health system strategy roles for more than 17 years. He also served as an elected Representative in the Utah State Legislature and chaired executive appropriations in the House of Representatives where he was responsible for a $15.1 billion annual state budget. He also helped move Utah Medicaid toward more accountable care and population health initiatives as well as drove efforts to ensure the state remains among a small minority of states with AAA credit ratings.
Dean has a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from the University of Hawaii and a Master of Public Administration degree from Brigham Young University. He has been consistently recognized for his political advocacy on behalf of public employees, people with disabilities, technology development, tax reform, and the business community. He is also active in child advocacy and international volunteer efforts.
Jim Sheets, MBA, MHA, serves as Group President and provides strategic and operational leadership to Longmont United Hospital, OrthoColorado Hospital, St. Anthony Hospital, St. Anthony North Hospital, St. Elizabeth Hospital and the Holy Cross ministries in Utah. On a mission to elevate others through service, authentic engagement, and fun, Jim is also responsible for the continued growth in Denver and Utah.
Jim started his career with CommonSpirit Health in California and Arizona and has come full circle, returning to CommonSpirit Health, where he will amplify health and wholeness in Colorado and Utah, as well as build a connected, enabling, and faith-based health network in Utah, which CommonSpirit recently acquired.
Jim has served in progressive leadership roles with Intermountain Healthcare for 16 years. Most recently, he served as Chief Operating Officer for Acute Care and provided oversight and strategic leadership to 21 hospitals, six Ambulatory Surgical Centers, eight operating lanes for acute care services, as well as outreach, telemedicine services and air ambulance services, including Life Flight.
Jim earned both Master of Healthcare Administration and Master of Business Administration degrees from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Science degree in business management from the University of Utah. Jim is an adjunct professor in the Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah teaching in the Master’s in Healthcare Administration program and has served on the Utah Hospital Association Board of Directors.
A native to Utah, Jim is an outdoor enthusiast and enjoys playing golf, skiing, fishing and backpacking with his family and friends.
Brenda Simpson, DNP, RN, CENP, is the Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer for GAC. Supporting our nearly 6,500 nurses, Brenda is on a mission to be an advocate for those we serve, including our patients, communities and caregivers. She is responsible for managing and evaluating system-wide clinical policies and the nursing shared governance framework, nursing professional development and the Central Staffing Office. Brenda is committed to enhancing clinical excellence, patient safety and delivering whole person care – mind, body and spirit - across GAC connected ecosystem.
With more than 25 years of progressive leadership experience, Brenda has a passion for leading teams to nursing excellence. She served as System Vice President & Chief Nursing Officer for Northeast Georgia Health System (NGHS) in Gainesville, Ga. for five years and prior to joining NGHS, she spent nine years as System Senior Vice President & Chief Nursing Officer at CHI St. Vincent Health System in Little Rock, now a part of CommonSpirit Health. Brenda also has held the role of Team Leader as an American Nurses Credentialing Center Magnet Appraiser for the past six years.
Brenda earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Tennessee State University in Nashville, a Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and a Doctorate of Nursing Practice from the University of South Alabama in Mobile. She is Certified in Executive Nursing Practice (CENP), a member of the American Organization of Nursing Leadership and the American Nurses Association and has published extensively on topics related to optimizing nurse leadership practice.