Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
By Gordon Woodworth, Chronicle News Editor
Calling it “a chance for me to get back to a place that feels like home,” Ray Agnew will rejoin Glens Falls Hospital as vice president of hospital and community engagement in February 2020.
Mr. Agnew, 62, was the hospital’s vice president for community relations and executive vice president of the Glens Falls Hospital Foundation from June 1998 to April 2011.
“My primary focus will be community and government relations, marketing and public relations, and helping get the word out about what an incredible place Glens Falls Hospital is,” Mr. Agnew told The Chronicle Tuesday.
Contacted for comment, hospital president and CEO Dianne Shugrue said she sees Mr. Agnew’s role “as an extension of myself…His rejoining the hospital will be received very positively, both internally and externally.”
She said Mr. Agnew will be the hospital’s spokesperson and press liaison.
“He’s very well-versed on what is going on in health care,” Ms. Shugrue said, noting that he will remain chair of the Adirondack Health board of trustees, whick oversees Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake and Lake Placid Health and Medical Fitness Center.
Mr. Agnew is currently vice president for college advancement at Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondacks, where he has overseen a team that has brought in $29.4-million in gift and grant revenue since 2011.
“I’ve had a wonderful experience at Paul Smith’s, and I will be forever grateful for the opportunities here, but I’m really excited about coming back to Glens Falls,” he said.
Mr. Agnew said he is under contract to buy a house on Wilmot Street in Glens Falls. “I’m looking forward to moving back to town.”
Mr. Agnew is a past president of the Glens Falls Rotary Club, and served on the boards of the Prospect Child and Family Center, the Lake George Opera Festival, LARAC and High Peaks Hospice.
The Elizabethtown native graduated from the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam and worked at several SUNY schools, including his alma mater. He’s an accomplished musician who still performs frequently at local charity events.
In 2008, he donated a kidney to Glens Falls Hospital co-worker Donna Davison-Smith, the then-patient representative director at the hospital who was in the end stages of kidney failure.
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