Man who helped lead a Kennewick institution during tumultuous years dies

A Kennewick man who helped lead the former Kennewick General Hospital through its transition to its new Southridge campus has died at the age of 88.

Vic Johnson served on the board of the Kennewick Public Hospital District from 1998 through 2015.

In addition, he was a Kennewick Irrigation District board member in the 1990s and also served as interim district manager for the Kennewick Irrigation District from 2005 to 2007.

Johnson was a retired chemical engineer at the Hanford nuclear reservation site, bringing his focus on details to public service, and also had owned and operated a hay and cattle operation.

Johnson served on the hospital board during some of its most tumultuous years as the health care economy left some hospitals across the nation that were not part of larger organizations struggling financially.

“The challenges we have ahead in the health care field — they present a challenge to us, and at the same time gives us lots of opportunities. We have to be smart about how we approach some of these things,” he said in 2015.

In 2013, Kennewick General Hospital was renamed Trios Health and in 2014 it opened its Southridge campus as part of a plan to expand beyond its landlocked property where the original hospital opened in 1952 on Auburn Street.

Three years later, after Johnson was no longer on the hospital district board, the board filed for bankruptcy protection for the financially struggling Trios Health, and the hospital was saved through a sale to a private company.

In 2015 at the end of Johnson’s final term on the hospital district, the Tri-Cities editorial board described his demeanor as thoughtful and said he “is reasonable and pragmatic, and does not appear to let emotions get in the way of his decisions.”

Johnson died Oct. 12 at the hospital he had worked to have built in south Kennewick.

He was born in Sprague, Wash., and had lived in the Tri-Cities since 1959.

Life Tributes Cremation Center, Kennewick, is in charge of arrangements.

This story was originally published October 20, 2022 at 5:30 AM.