10 years ago 1998

If all goes according to plan, Cascade Valley Hospitals new world will be up and running in six months. According to hospital staff, patients will be seen faster and get more attention from the nursing staff. Filling out and finding paperwork will be easier for doctors and staff. Barriers between the departments will disappear and job descriptions and titles will change so information can flow easier. As a result of the changes, in the next two years alone, under the new world plan the hospital will save more than $1.5 million, $1.2 million of which has been reduced from the $24 million annual budget. The hospital started working on the redesign project last fall for a better way to deliver service that also would cut the budget by 8.3 percent. The process was done from the inside out, directed by a team of 10 hospital employees representing each department. Thirty-three employees applied to serve on the team given the task of developing the new plan. The 10 were selected after an interview process and spent the last four months looking at how the hospital operated from all points of view. Nothing was sacred. Team members shadowed hospital workers to find out just what their responsibilities were and noted specific tasks being unnecessarily duplicated. Management positions were considered for effectiveness. We stuck our little noses into every nook and cranny, said Project Manager Barbara Hinshaw, a registered nurse who worked in the emergency department. She and the other team members were reassigned duties during the project. The result, according to Hinshaw, is an entirely new system in which employees count on each other rather than management. But before that happens the old world must be left behind. That process officially started this week. Pink slips were delivered to seven hospital managers whose jobs have been eliminated. Five additional full-time nursing positions are also being eliminated. Those notices go out next week. Many of the remaining jobs will have new descriptions and titles. Current employees will have to re-apply for the newly designated jobs, including seven of the 10 members of the design team. While the job shuffle continues, education programs also are being put in place to provide training for the new world including preparations for new jobs, new attitudes and new responsibilities. The team began spreading the word about the new world last month, first to the managers who learned their jobs were being cut. On the day the managers were briefed on the new design, things were pretty tense in the morning, said Hospital Administrator Bob Campbell who, under the new plan is the chief executive officer and the chief operating officer. But by afternoon, he said, those managers were offering to help make sure the plan can be implemented. That says a lot about the quality of people we have, he noted.

25 years ago 1983
It had all the flash and spirit of a professional match. The player nervously awaited the starting gun. And the fans, like fans everywhere were more interested in cheering on their own team than giving equal time to the visitors from Lake Stevens and Cascade (they finished third last year). It wasnt the basketball playoffs or wrestling. It was hardly physical at all, unless pushing pencils and buttons counts. But the air of competition and nervous tension was certainly present. Master of ceremonies Ben Wink Hansen introduced the teams for Arlingtons only home game in the annual Scott Paper Hi-Q competition. Representing Arlington High were Ty Carlson, Spencer Fuentes, Brent Berry, Robert Hadley, Steve Cavcey, Greg Ohlemeier, Steve Anacker and Fazle Shabbir. Coach Lori Nikalson sent her first team Carlson, Berry, Fuentes and Hadley into the fray. Straining to make himself heard above the failing public address system and the cheers of the crowd, Hansen sent down the questions to each team. It looked for a while as if the Eagles would overcome the middle of the road standing after their earlier match on Feb. 8. The Eagles correctly called Chicago as the site of a recent mayoral election of national consequence. They did equally well in choosing Saratoga as the site of a famous battle in the American Revolution. Then the going got tougher. Their sports question answer was on the money, but nobody knew the name of a 19th century New England poet. They got the right definition of flaccid (flabby), but the chemistry question stumped them and Cascade started to surge ahead. The Eagles missed the correct answer under American government (common law) and two-thirds of the way through the score stood at Arlington, 15; Lake Stevens, 16; and Cascade, 26. In the category team choice, everyone picked math (much to this reporters dismay). Lake missed their geometry question. Cascade eventually answered their algebra question, but the Eagles came through on their first try on the trigonometry question. In the Shakespeare category, Arlington missed identifying the correct character from As You Like It. Lake also missed their character from The Taming of the Shrew. But Cascade came through and named Hamlet in Hamlet. In world history, Arlington missed again and Cascade got it right. The last series was math once more, and Arlington missed while Cascade got the right answer. The final score was Arlington, 20; Lake Stevens 17; and Cascade, 38.

50 years ago 1958
The West Coast Telephone Company notified The Arlington Times that funds from the 1958 construction budget had been allocated for the purchase of a building site for a new central office. Lloyd Wallgren, district manager, reported that present quarters are too small to accommodate automatic equipment which will be put in service when the exchange is converted to dial. Construction of the new building is scheduled for 1959. The company will also install additional trunk circuits during the year to enable Arlington operators to dial toll calls to Everett and tributary exchanges. The local exchange will share in the $832,000 earmarked by the company for station apparatus, furniture, tools and vehicles in the Everett district this year. West Coasts total 1958 construction budget for Washington, Oregon and northern California has been set at $8.5 million of which more than $4 million is being expended in this district. Wallgren explained that West Coast has spent upwards of $24 million in expanding plants since the end of 1955 and in the process has become the tenth largest among Americas 4,600 independent telephone companies.