Board names Gordon Ashcombe chair for 2024–2025

NANA's board of directors elected Gordon Ashcombe, chief executive officer of the Society of Rural Hospital Administrators, as board chair for a two-year term at its January meeting. Ashcombe has served on the board since 2021 and takes the gavel for 2024–2025.

Board officers are elected by the sitting board at the January meeting, for two-year terms. Ashcombe's election follows that cycle and puts a rural-health voice at the head of the table for the first time in NANA's history. The Society of Rural Hospital Administrators represents 1,450 members across administrators at hospitals with fewer than 100 beds, a membership base with a staffing profile closer to NANA's smaller members than its largest ones.

"Rural hospital administrators run associations the same way any of our members do — thin staff, wide territory, and a board that expects results," Ashcombe said. "I plan to spend my two years making sure smaller member organizations get the same attention as the larger ones."

Ashcombe succeeds an outgoing chair whose two-year term ended with the January meeting. He will chair board meetings, set the agenda in consultation with CEO Walter Abernathy, and represent NANA at chapter and sector events over the next two years.

Ashcombe named three areas he intends to focus on during his term:

• Continuing NANA's research program, including the annual State of Associations survey now in its planning stages for a March release

• Supporting the chapters, particularly smaller ones with limited staff capacity

• Working with the board's finance and audit committee on the dues structure that funds NANA's own operations

"None of this is new work," Ashcombe said. "It's continuing what the board started before I got here, with a chair who happens to run a smaller shop himself."

The same month, Elena Marsh, chief executive officer of the Society of Historic Mill Towns in Lowell, began her term as chapter chair for Greater Boston. Marsh takes over a chapter that meets monthly, rotating among Boston, Providence, and Manchester, with a virtual option every month for members who can't travel.

Marsh has led the Society of Historic Mill Towns, a 150-member preservation and civic organization, through several municipal partnership projects, and said she wants Greater Boston's chapter meetings to focus more on peer problem-solving and less on presentations. The chapter's monthly roundtable already draws staff from across New England, and Marsh said the rotation among Boston, Providence, and Manchester will continue unchanged under her term.

"I've sat through enough chapter meetings that were really just a speaker and a Q&A," Marsh said. "I want more of the meeting to be members talking to each other about what's actually breaking in their offices."

Ashcombe's term runs through the January 2026 board meeting, when officers are next elected. Marsh's chapter term is ongoing, following the same cadence NANA's other five chapter chairs already keep. Both leaders take up their roles as NANA enters a year that includes the first edition of its new annual research report and a national Advocacy Day in April.