Watsonville Community Hospital appointed its newest board member and added a new government and community relations position.
Alexandra Friel was sworn in as the hospital’s newest board member in December, filling the vacancy left by Marcela Tavantzis, whose term was up at the end of 2024. Board chair Tony Nuñez and Dr. Katherine Gabriel-Cox were reappointed to their board positions by the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors at the end of their respective terms.
Friel is the daughter-in-law of the late John Friel, who was one of the first board members steering the hospital out from bankruptcy in 2022. John Friel served as board chair for two years, and also as hospital CEO in the early 1990s. He died last year due to an illness.
Alexandra Friel has more than 20 years of experience in education as a teacher, principal and district administrator for various school districts in Northern California, including Scotts Valley Unified School District, said hospital spokesperson Nancy Gere.
“Friel is passionate about continuing her father-in-law’s legacy and vision to expand access and support for community health care, and brings her own unique skillset to the task,” according to a media release from the hospital Monday afternoon.
In addition to Friel, Allyson Violante, former chief of staff for previous Santa Cruz County Supervisor Zach Friend, joins the leadership team as director of government and community relations — a new position created at the hospital.
Violante currently serves as the chair for the county’s planning commission, and is a member of several other committees for the Scotts Valley Water District, the Santa Cruz Mid-County Groundwater Agency and Central Coast Community Energy.
Gere said the role of government and community relations director isn’t necessarily a new need for the hospital, and is a job that used to be distributed among several people. In the past, there wasn’t a single person dedicated to being a liaison between the hospital and government agencies, she said.
Violante’s role will also include doing more community outreach — another responsibility that used to be divided among hospital administrative staff, Gere said. The new role will also oversee a process to determine what the community’s health needs are and use that information to put together a strategic implementation plan.
“We’re thrilled to have someone with her level of experience. She is just very well-known within the community, within Santa Cruz County,” Gere said of Violante. “She worked for Supervisor Zach Friend for 12 years, so as you can imagine, that entailed all kinds of work with many agencies, even beyond the formal committee she sat on. I think she’s very well-positioned to come into this role.”
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