Team Spotlight: Mary Valmonte
Mary Valmonte currently works at JMA as a Senior Project Manager, Senior Medical Planner and Medical Equipment Planner in the ever-important healthcare sector. With over 30 years of experience, she has been responsible for a diverse range of medical projects in both the acute and ambulatory care environments. She has been involved in three multi-billion-dollar international hospital and medical city projects, multiple award-winning hospital projects, a Planetree hospital project, and an award-winning vivarium project.
Mary has written two published articles - “Virtual Mock-Ups Streamline the Lean 3P Process” Washington Healthcare News, May 2010 (Reprinted with permission: Oregon Healthcare News, 2017; California Healthcare News, 2015; and Utah Healthcare News, 2011); and “Code Changes Respond To Healthcare Work Flow and Operational Cost” Healthcare Building Ideas, March 30, 2012.
Having received her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of Washington-Seattle, Mary is a true-Seattellite. She currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors for the Seattle Seafair Commodores, who are Seattle’s official Ambassadors of Goodwill for Tourism. She is only the 6th woman and 1st minority woman since 1955 to lead this organization. This Seafair Family Group raises scholarship dollars year-round for the Seafair Foundation’s Leadership for Women Scholarship Program (Miss Seafair). We wanted to ask Mary a few questions about her hometown and why good design is important for the world of Healthcare.
What is something you love about living in Seattle?
Other than the Seahawks? Everything about our beautiful Emerald City including the scenery with all the green trees, the surrounding mountains, Lake Washington, the Puget Sound- together with people from all walks of life who come from different backgrounds and who love to share their heritage and cultures. All of this is showcased during our annual Seafair festival which brings the diverse neighborhoods of Greater Seattle together for fun, family and community, creating memories for a lifetime each summer.
You have been very involved in Seafair, Seattle’s Summer festival promoting tourism and raising money for scholarships. Do you have a favorite memory or tradition from the annual event?
Since 1950, summer in Seattle has always been Seafair. I will never forget all the pomp and circumstance of the entire 2019 summer. I was one of the five Seafair family leaders that year – the 65th Commandant of the Seattle Seafair Commodores. It was such an honor to raise the Seafair flag on the rooftop of the space needle, to kick off Seafair summer in Seattle, together with the head of the Seattle Seafair Clowns, Captain Kid of the Seafair Pirates, the leader of the Seafair Boat Club, and the President of HomeStreet Bank. HomeStreet Bank sponsored the H1 Hydroplane races on Lake Washington that year. It was quite scary on that rooftop and I thought the wind would blow me away! Hosting Torchlight Weekend was the most important role of the Commandant. I lead the Seattle Seafair Commodores in hosting leaders from other Northwest festivals, Canada, as well as international dignitaries and royalty visiting from Taipei, Taiwan and Seattle’s sister cities Kobe, Japan and Mazatlan, Mexico, before the parade. I was knighted a Portland Royal Rosarian and knighted by Seafair for a 3rd time. The Portland Royal Rosarians, as part of the festival tradition, planted a “Peace” rose bush in my name at the base of the Space Needle, along with other past Commandant’s rose bushes. But I think the height of my Seafair summer as Commandant was Fleet Week. At dawn the morning after Torchlight weekend, my husband and I took the traditional Commandant’s ride to lead the U.S. Navy ships and visiting Canadian fleet into Seattle for Fleet Week. We were on the USS Mobile Bay missile cruiser from Everett to Seattle. My husband and I also welcomed the Blue Angels pilots and ground crew when they arrived to Seattle and then a dinner event with the Blue Angels pilots and hydroplane racers before the big race on Lake Washington. That was the most amazing experience that I only get to do once as Commandant.
As a medical space planner, you help hospitals and clinics design their facilities to meet the needs of their communities. Why is space planning and design so important to healthcare?
Early in my career I had the honor of working on a project with Robert Venturi as the design architect. He said something to me one time that really stuck – that architecture is the art of placemaking. At the time, the buzz phrase “Evidence-Based Design” did not exist. I have applied this not only to planning healthcare facilities but to all buildings I’ve worked on – medical and non-medical. There are a lot of things to consider when it comes to healthcare planning and design: the human experience, how hospitals work, and the impact of the built environment to patient care and patient healing. Therefore planning and design must be a holistic approach in order to achieve the ultimate goal of improving patient outcomes, while making the experience positive for staff, visitors and patients.
How has the pandemic changed your work as a medical planner and medical equipment planner?
No impact. Medical planning and medical equipment planning can be done anywhere.
As far as how the pandemic has changed planning and designing the healthcare environment, this pandemic is definitely shaping the future of healthcare in my opinion. For decades, the only constant in healthcare has been change. But the pace of change will likely accelerate once we move on from our current pandemic response mode, and change will be at an ever-accelerating pace moving forward. This acceleration will demand more lean planning, lean design and lean construction. As a result of this pandemic, healthcare facilities are now having to manage care for increasingly sick patients—especially the “long haulers” of COVID 19. So the key to medical planning will be more towards designing for agility, meaning not just designing for flexibility in terms of response but the ability to respond quickly.
What made you choose to pursue medical planning, rather than becoming registered as an architect?
I started out like every new Architecture school graduate, working to pursue my registration. I initially started out in multi-family, custom residential and light commercial projects. Then healthcare design found me when my husband and I moved to Southern California. I responded to an ad in the L.A. Times by healthcare design firm seeking Project Architects and Project Managers for upcoming large projects. I graduated during a time when our economy was starting to tank – recession was at hand and new college graduates were having trouble finding work. I figured that no matter how good or bad the economy is doing, no one was going to say, “I need to put off those cancer treatments because we’re in a recession right now,” or, “I’m going to postpone having my heart surgery until the economy gets better,” or, “We’re in a recession, so I can’t give birth quite yet.” No matter how good or bad our economy is doing, healthcare is not affected. I also figured that since this firm was looking to hire (plural) Project Architects and Project Managers, they will soon be needing production staff as well. So I went ahead and applied and was offered a Designer position.
My first project, I was assigned to space plan a Molecular Biology Research Facility at UC San Diego. This building was the final phase for the Health Sciences quadrangle. I had no clue what this building was, and it took me about a couple of weeks to realize it was a vivarium, or animal lab, when I saw “Cage Washers” in the program. Fast forward, the project won awards and was featured on the front cover of Progressive Architecture. It won AIA’s Gold Medal for Space Planning and I was promoted to Associate just three years out of school. The partners said, “If she could figure out how to do an animal lab (that ultimately won an award), she should be able to figure out how to do hospitals.” So, the next project I was assigned to was High Desert Hospital Perinatal Center. And the rest is history.
How would someone who was looking to become a subject matter expert as a designer go about that?
When I started, internet search engines were non-existent. I was having so much fun planning and designing all aspects of the hospital. What I really loved about these types of facilities is that each one had unique challenges. I spent a lot of personal time in the office reading healthcare design magazines and I quickly started developing a “learn file” for myself at my desk.
Project production time – especially being able to design details unique to the project. Healthcare design is not a specialty for everyone. Medical projects demand highly technical and “tight”, or well-coordinated, documents. If a designer is looking to be a Medical Planning and Medical Equipment Planning subject matter expert, or SME, my advice is to research and study healthcare design assiduously. When the pandemic is over, visit hospitals. Don’t just visit, but “feel” the healthcare environment as if you are a patient. I’ve spent numerous hours sitting in waiting rooms just watching visitor and patient flow, observing and taking notes.
“The only constant in healthcare is change.” As I’ve mentioned earlier, healthcare is always changing, and every facility is unique to itself and the specialty healthcare service(s) it provides. I could never get tired or get burn out from working on healthcare projects because I learn so many new things on every project. Each time I complete a project, I know I’m that much better at it. My silver lining is when I’m sitting in a patient room or exam room and my family member on the gurney or exam table says, “This is a really nice (patient) room”, or “This is a really nice clinic.” I just smile.