Welcome to The Waterbury Talks. I'm your host Grant Copeland. Today's conversation is with Peter Adamo. Peter is the former CEO of Waterbury Health, a network of healthcare entities. That includes Waterbury Hospital, plus primary, emergency, acute and home care provider. Adamo has been around a lot of health systems and a lot of city revitalizations, which he discusses and specific and eloquent detail. For a man who has experienced many things in many places, Peter also offers great insight on what makes Waterbury special. Welcome as The Waterbury Talks with Peter Adamo. You were born in New York and moved to New Jersey when you were six years old. Is that right? That's right. Tell me about your. First thing I should tell you is that my dad was born in Italy, came here in his twenties, met my mom at 30, had me not long thereafter. For six years were spent in Brooklyn. We then moved to south Jersey outside of Philadelphia. I was pretty good at school. Pretty good at baseball. I'm fairly good at most things, not outstanding at anything special. I was good at math and science and chose that I would pursue a degree in industrial engineering at Rutgers University, which is state university of New Jersey. And a couple of years into my career, I found myself in San Diego and I've been all over the country. So that's kind of the upbringing I've been single for most of my life. I'm now 59, got married at 57, have a beautiful wife and a wonderful step son who is the love of my life. So that's my background. So was it Willingboro township? Do I have that right? Willingboro yes. So I've done a little fact-finding and history lesson for myself. This is the reason why you didn't tell me the question is not on no surprise here, but it was interesting in reading about the township that it went through a rebranding itself from Levittown to Longborough. And it seemed like during that time, probably when you were a kid there in the sixties and into the seventies, it was a community that was looking to racially integrate more than it had in the past as the population really boomed. Can you give us an idea about just what it was like growing up in that community at that time? It was great. We had kids from all walks of life, all backgrounds, all levels of income. Each of the, we call them parks, and each of the parks, all the names of the streets started with the same letter. I lived in Garfield. So I lived on Garrison circle and our little peewee football team would play against the penny packer team. And all their streets were named with a P there was a pool in an elementary school in each of the parks. And I think there were as many as 10, if not 11 parks in Willingboro very sports oriented, very community oriented. And I had friends from every ethnicity, every race, every background and I think it was very good for me to understand how different people view life and the best way I have found is to spend time with them in their homes, eating their foods and learning a little bit about their culture. I will, I've always enjoyed that background. Have any favorite phrases, things that you kind of live by? I saw something in your office, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. Yeah. I, I like a couple of things and I I'll end up making up things throughout the day. That sounded like I heard somewhere else. When many times they're just ridiculous, the humorous, more like a Yogi bear ism. But I like to think that I'm an optimist where I find opportunity and difficulty to me that's where some of the greatest breakthroughs will occur no matter what you do. Believe me, I'm so enthused about what we're doing right now at Waterbury Health. So, Waterbury Health is obviously much more than just Waterbury Hospital. Talk to us about the whole health network, that continuum of care that Waterbury Health is offering. Well, the first thing I need to tell you is that we employ more than 2100 people. All of the 2100, we are providing services and more than 20 locations. The hospital is just one of its many components. We have a medical group of more than a hundred physicians that we employ. We have a rehab division with 11 outpatient centers. They also provide therapies and schools and they provide our inpatient therapy. We have VNA at home, which is our home health agency. We have partnerships with the greater Waterbury imaging center where we do MRIs together, a women's imaging centers in Southbury. We are branching out into areas like Wolcott, Southbury, Naugatuck, and Watertown to bring our physicians closer to where our patients live, so that if they wanted to see a primary care physician, a specialist, or have some imaging or diagnostic work done, they don't necessarily have to drive onto our campus to do that so we're coming closer to them. Peter talk about the hospital's role in the community. Both as a healthcare institution and also as a philanthropic partner. Well, I think we understand what our obligation is to the community our paychecks and a discretionary income that our folks may be able to accumulate is what drives the economy here locally without a healthy hospital, folks may not move to this area and without paychecks that have the ability to be spent and spent time and time again. The economy will suffer locally. So we understand that as our primary motivation is to make sure that we do everything we can to keep our folks gainfully employed. Over the last year, we've added a hundred new positions to the hospital. So we're feeling pretty good about where the hospital is headed. There are over a hundred different organizations that we support in one capacity or another. Every one of our directors is asked to serve in the community whether it be on a board, whether it be coaching a little league team or 101 different things that they decide to do and they're evaluated each year on their level of participation. So we feel good about that and I didn't do that just because I thought it was the right thing to do. There's a strategic reason for it as well by being in the community, folks are beginning to interact with are people who are very polished, very professional, very genuine people. Many of whom have grown up here. Their parents lived here. Their grandparents have lived here. And when you get a chance to meet some of our people, you'll say to yourself, that's an awfully good group of people you have work in there. The hospital must be a decent place. The statistics indicate that in most households it could be as long as 10 years before someone needs hospital services. So if I have to wait 10 years to have an opportunity to show someone how good a hospital this is, I may be waiting an awfully long time. So putting folks out into the city made great sense for us on so many levels. What's your take on Waterbury now versus what you saw before taking the job? I can tell you how I interviewed for this job. I didn't realize there was an opening at Waterbury with the parent company, prospect medical holdings. I sat with the owner of the company and one of the regional folks who I had some time with at a former life and I said, his question to me was after a series of questions that I thought I did a good job with, he said, what do you, what are you looking for? I said, I'd like three things. I'd like a hospital that is busy enough so that I have the opportunity to do some larger things. I've had the opportunity to come to very big hospitals, very small hospitals. There is a simmer that you want so that you can justify doing things without enough volume. You don't have the opportunity to justify sophisticated intervention. So that was the first thing I wanted. The second thing I wanted was a sophisticated medical staff. The third thing was I wanted to be involved in the community. The hospital has been around for 130 years, so when you walk into an institution with this sort of a tradition, you are humbled and feel like you've got to do the absolute best because you too will become part of the history of the hospital and don't do anything to shame it. So that's how I came into the hospital. What's changed with me is the fact that I knew no one coming in and now I've been embraced. People who want to do something special in a city, they know they can put their fingerprints on and make a giant difference in. You mentioned in the past that your leadership style is about helping people feel proud of themselves. Why should water various in area feel proud about themselves? There's so much here. And I think if you understand, and I'm not the expert at this, there are probably others that you'll interview who will actually have lived the history of this city's development. But my take is is that over time, people moved away from the cities. They were educated in larger institutions and said, you know what? I don't want to be too far away from New York or, or Boston, but I would like to be able to afford a home, I want to make sure I've got a good school, and I want to know that I have enough talent to be able to manage my commerce, my business, if I move somewhere and it's desolate and I can't find professionals to work for me and with me, then I'm never going to be able to do the kinds of things you get. So that's what you get in Waterbury. You get a lot of enthusiasm, you get a lot of talent, then you get people who are dedicated to the community. How can healthcare serve as a pillar of economic development? Or more generally just growth, like a market in Waterbury. You've been to a lot of markets around the country. How is healthcare utilized as a pillar for growth in that community? I've seen this I'm in El Paso. I was in west Texas and years ago, we were the 19th installation of a gamma knife. Where you're doing blood lists, brain surgery. Be the 19th in the United States and to be able to draw from what ends up being a 500 mile radius around you into another country, developing that sense of technological advancement is a wonderful thing. People begin to associate the city with its assets. Think of Cleveland, where I spent three years, the Cleveland clinic is an icon in that city. And if you take a look at where it's located, it's not the prettiest of neighborhoods. Yet people fly from all over the world to be treated and to be diagnosed at the Cleveland clinic. So healthcare is almost 20% of the national economy. It is an industry in and of itself that drives the economy. And one of the things we're doing at the hospital is trying to keep people who need care local who have over the last 15 to 20 years, sought out their options beyond the territory of greater Waterbury. If we can keep more of that business here, the folks that treat them will have that much more to do tremendous opportunity to grow just by adding more services to people who are living at further distances away from downtown Waterbury. You mentioned Cleveland. And I imagine you were there as the ship started to write itself the revitalization of that city and surrounding area. It wasn't just LeBron James, was it? It wasn't LeBron James. So I kid about this all the time and LeBron is the icon of the city, but folks like Michael Simon, he's an iron chef. If I got to meet him, he's a genuine fellow. It was guys like him, who would say, you know what? This is a forgotten territory of the city. He opened his first restaurant called Lola in Treemont. Treemont was forgotten, not a nice place. He was bold enough to open it there before, you know, what other restaurants opened up? Housing, chains, art galleries opened. And then he opened up his second restaurant. The fact that they were able to bring jobs, commerce into areas that had already been forgotten. In my opinion, was the way Cleveland turn things around. I was very fortunate. I was a one of 40 people each year selected to be part of leadership, Cleveland. I happened to meet some people when I first got there, I got lucky. They recommended me. And when you see how folks understand what life used to be like. I don't know if you know this, but in Cleveland there were more millionaires, less than a hundred years ago in Cleveland than in any other place in the world. Those thoughts, those foundations that is in your blood, it's genetically there. So that's what I love about Waterbury. This was humming 25, 30 years ago. People still know what it feels like. Resurrecting that sentiment is going to be something very special in the year. The thing about Cleveland that's probably worth mentioning here, is how they were able to find a revival. You know, when steel left, both Pittsburgh and Cleveland and that entire rust belt region that city because of its tradition had a hard time adjusting to the new way of life. This is where tradition can sometimes work against you. If you're not open to seeing the new. It took them a couple of decades to realize that that was not going to come back. It wasn't the way of life in Northeastern, Pennsylvania going forward. They had to figure out a new way to do things. I was there in the midst of the change. I've been gone for almost 10 years now and I get emails from folks about great things that are happening there. That's where I truly understood the power of coming together with as many business people and as many community leaders as possible to change the way of life. I loved my time in Cleveland. I met a lot of wonderful people there a lot like the people here in Connecticut, you know, they knew what life was like in the good old days. There's still a feel for it. It's still in their DNA and finding a new way to put all of that talent to work in a new way is a really exciting thing to do. You mentioned the leadership Cleveland group that you're a member of, and as I recall, the group talks about cross discipline collaboration. Great buzzword, but what does that really mean? And how do you apply it in an area like Waterbury, even at a hospital? It's not just about the healthcare delivered here. We need firms like yours to work with. We need people in the food industry to, to work with there's connections in every way, shape and form at leadership Cleveland, each year we get a large catalog of everyone who's ever been in leadership Cleveland. It goes back, I don't know, almost a hundred years. So anyone in that book, you can pick up the phone and call and say, I need some advice. Does your organization do these sorts of things? So having that many people to tap into on a regular basis where you can help each other and you keep the business local is ridiculously powerful. So we talked about Cleveland, but you've also been Pittsburgh. Yeah. That was part of the Cleveland territory. Okay. Philadelphia, California, Texas. So again, what do you glean from those other areas? How have they sustained themselves? How have they grown? And I say that as a broad question, because of course that can mean a lot of different things, economic development that can mean cross-discipline new industries coming in investment opportunities, taxes. The whole nine yards. But as you look with your experience now of having really gone around the country and seen how it happened firsthand and being an executive within those market areas, how does an area like Waterbury come to the revitalization that you're envisioning? You know, San Diego didn't need much. For to promote it into, to gain an improved image it always had one. As I moved from the west coast to the places I lived, El Paso would be the next stop. I spent a little time in Las Crucis, which is essentially a sister city just across the New Mexico, Texas border. El Paso had a very unique challenge. It didn't really fit into the rest of the state. A lot of people don't realize it was actually on a different time zone than the rest of Texas. So there was a stigma about El Paso, El Paso ends. And when NAFTA was introduced, People realize that what we had was proximity to the border, two separate border crossings, inexpensive labor, and plenty of it with the ability to do things just a mile south of the border, bring it back north and distribute because there was giant transportation capabilities there. What you've got to look for is your strengths. I remember being part of the chamber of commerce and listening to 101 different ideas about what El Paso could or should become. They finally stumbled onto the things that they should have moved into, but trying to become a vacation destination was one idea and I scratched my head because I had traveled in the Southwest. I knew what Scottsdale had to offer. El Paso could never step into that arena and compete. Right. So you have to listen to a lot of different ideas before you settle in. I think what we have the ability to do here that makes us unique is we have wonderful cross sections of major highways. We have transportation in all forms. We have a downtown with folks eager to work folks willing to be trained rapidly, to move into jobs that we can prepare for. We have real estate here that is extremely affordable. We have a mayor who is willing to provide incentives. You've got great healthcare. You've got great schools. And while I wouldn't say that the economics and downtown Waterbury is Described as affluent, there's tremendous affluence in the suburbs. And people who understand what development should look like. I'd say that the strength and the diversity and the fact that there are people willing to pick up jobs and work hard is our strength and we need to capitalize on it the same way El Paso took advantage of that diversity. Can you talk a bit more broadly going beyond hospital property or Waterbury health? You've got St. Mary's here. You've got specialized care here. You've got a whole fabric of healthcare and you also mentioned that being in the shadows, let's say of both Hartford and New Haven. What's the current state of the state of healthcare in greater Waterbury and what are the opportunities for, for again, health care is a economic pillar. Okay. A couple of things I can tell you first is that we have a Yale affiliated internal medicine residency program here. So they cover the house for us throughout the day and in the evenings in addition to our intensivist and, and hospitalists. Those folks are trained, many of whom go off and get their fellowships and things like pulmonology or cardiology. So to think that the care at places like Yale and Hartford are better, I would say no. I would say that the care here for fundamental things may be better because our doctors are touching those kinds of things all day, every day, they're quaternary. Meaning, they do some things that most hospitals in the country would never dream of doing. They're not high volume things trying to get into transplants in Waterbury would be absolutely foolish. There are only a handful of them done a year in most communities, so to think that you could gear up for, it would probably bankrupt the rest of the hospital and destroy what it is that we do. So if we're able to take care of 85 to 90% of the local need and then have relationships with those experts who are phenomenal at the nearby institutions, let alone what you have in the city of New York, that's the most intelligent place to position. So you started down the industrial engineering road?Yeah. You did a little research didn't you? Yeah, why the change, of course. Well, I came out of school working for a company called American appraisal company had quartered out of Milwaukee. They had an office in Princeton and I interviewed with them. I really like the fellow who managed it. And as an industrial engineer, as an engineer, I was somewhat of a misfit. Even when I walked in the classrooms in college at Rutgers, the professors would sometimes ask me, are you sure you're in the right classroom? Like you, I played a little baseball. I played very little baseball. But I don't think I look like the typical"enginerd," and I probably acted a little uncharacteristic of an engineer. So I wasn't quite decided I was going to get into strict engineering where there would be nothing but numbers and computers and that sort of a thing. So I took a job with American appraisal, and then, I was on the road quite a bit, and it gave me an opportunity to see so many different. Field's our job was to evaluate machinery and equipment. So I saw everything from sheet metal fabrication, to large forge operations, to slaughter warehouses, to gold wire stringing and that was all in the course of about two and a half years. Well, that company pared itself down and shut down its Princeton office where I was working and I needed to look for another role. Fortunately, I found something in San Diego. I moved into sheet metal processing at general dynamics at Limburg field in San Diego, which was another engineering position. I was then kind of hassled by my younger brother who was in sales. He was making 3, 4, 5 times more than what I was making and my father passed away. So he said, why don't you come back to New Jersey? Right. Mom would like you around, right. I've got a role for you. I'm your little brother I'm, I'm making a lot more money than you are, we could get into this business and really make a lot of money into the future. So I resisted for about a year and then it just dawned on me that, Hey, maybe this is the right thing to do. So I came back to New Jersey, got into sales, I didn't really like it, I didn't feel as fulfilled. So I decided to get back in engineering. No one really wanted me. I was even more of a pariah having been in sales and then not acting so much like the typical engineer. So my first role that was a soft engineering, was a management engineering position at graduate hospital in Philadelphia. I worked for a fellow there who was an industrial engineer. I still remember him. He's a wonderful guy. His name is Steve Jagiella. We still stay in touch right. I thank him for opening the door for me and that was in the mid eighties. That's a long story, but a little at a time, I started to ask for more and I was a guy that was willing to take the weird jobs in the odd locations. That's how I ended up in El Paso. That's how I ended up in Las Crucis. That's how I ended up in Cleveland. And I would not do it differently going forward. I was rather fortunate in those situations and that I was mobile. What it's done for me is it allowed me to see lots of ways that things get done at lots of levels. Not only in healthcare, but in fields other than healthcare. I hope that answers your question. Okay. Absolutely. Yeah. Is being a strategic planner or being a hospital administer still the odd job that you started out with? You know, the more I do this, the more I realize how needlessly complex this field is. Each time there's a problem, there seems to be another regulation that turns into a new constraint. And I remember from my engineering days where we had to fill out blue book after blue book solving. Simultaneous quadratic equations. Now they have to be done on computers because they're too sophisticated. One additional constraint has a multiplicative effect on the complexity of an operation. It's you take one and add it to the 17 that already exists. It's an 18 fold complexity. What we need to see more of in healthcare is the removal of unnecessary constraints. If we can do that, we can get folks at the bedside. Literally back to the bedside, instead of doing things that are to satisfy someone else. So in my own little way, I'm trying to find ways to simplify things. Let's work on the processes, make them fundamental, make them reliable. Therefore we don't need so much time, energy and constraint placed on everything. We do figure out what the patient really needs and everything else should be challenged. Yeah. What becomes the metric then? Is it simply the shell game of profit and loss, or is it something philosophical that you're looking to attain or is it a combination somewhere in between? We had a retreat not long ago, and I had been thinking about this for a while. I wanted to choose something that makes us unique and, you know, who are we? You know, there something we referred to as the power of we, but we is a little deeper than that. I wanted us to think of ourselves as the hospital that doesn't let its patients wait. Right. And behind that is, is really the crux of what quality is. You don't come here to wait. You come here for things that happen, not so much quickly, but without delay, there's a subtle difference between the two moving quickly or rapidly. Haphazardly is not what we're looking for, but we don't want folks to be waiting for things to happen. That's not why you're at a hospital. You could wait for things to happen at home. So that's rule number one in the organization. We want to have fun here. I think if we could have a little bit of fun, that's great. Staying ahead of things and staying current is important to us, right? And then at the end of the day, if we do well financially, we can do good in the community. And to me that just finishes the cycle. Right? Find something that makes you unique, have some fun, doing it, stay current and then take care of the community that takes care of you. That to me is the motivation I think it could be very unifying we're in the middle of rolling out the power of we campaign and how our patients don't wait here. So reducing complexity and just making things happen, certainly applies to Waterbury Health. I assume you would make the same argument for Waterbury in the area here. Oh, without a doubt. Keep it simple. Right? It's easy to execute. And you mentioned you're not a Waterburian, you're not born and bred. You're essentially a, an outsider has been dropped into the situation. You have ideas, but obviously you need alignment and you need that collaboration that ultimately sparks growth. Where, where do you even know? I've learned that if the economy is weak in a community, businesses will fail. Smaller ones can navigate, but the big ones can't dodge the bullets. You've got to be able to make sure that the community that is your customer is as healthy in so many ways, not just economically or not just physically, but in every way possible if you're going to be downstreaming to so many of them each day. Each day, we look at 3000 encounters at the network between the emergency room outpatient services direct admits, our, our rehab operations, our home health visits and visits to our doctor's offices. 3000 touches a day. That's a big deal. So if we're not finding ways to make sure that the people who are seeking our services are as healthy as they can be both physically and financially, we're going to suffer. So it's a compelling reason to stay involved. So I did some more research, you had a former colleague of yours say that you embrace leadership as a way of being independent of title or position. What a cool compliment. What would you say- Who said that? That was Dan Loper from buck county. Oh yeah. He's a good guy. Yeah. He's a very good guy. So you've got a lot of people behind you and with you. How do you take a leadership concept like that? And not only apply it to a healthcare system, but allow people to bring independent thoughts to what you're trying to do. How does that all coalesce into something that's tangible? I think it's all day, every day, the simple encounters I have, I'll walk out with my hands in my pocket. Just kid about something. Right. And I think having that looseness about what we do without becoming disrespectful or degrading or unprofessional, I think gets more honesty. I try to admit things about myself. I know what my limitations are. Sometimes, the best way to get ahead is to understand where you are not necessarily strong and find ways to backstop it. So that's something that I do rather deliberately. The other thing I do, and it's all day, every day. I, I, I don't think I can point to one thing, but just the other day someone said something to me at the end of my, I each month, I do a CEO round table luncheon with folks who have birthdays that month. So we have cupcakes for them, we have lunch, we sit for an hour and we go through a few things. I'm always the first to go. Right. And it's name, how long have you been here? What are you most proud of? And if you were the CEO, what would you change? Right. So we went around the room and there were plenty of ideas. We write them down, there's no management in the room. This is just rank and file folks, right. Who have wonderful stories to tell. Many of them have been here for long periods of time. They want to talk about the history. They want to talk about the people they work with. And all of that is just being sponged up into my brain. Right. And when I get a chance to educate them on what we're thinking, we kind of come together and on the way out the door one of the people who have been here for, I think she was here for more than 20 years, social worker said, you know, Pete you seem so down to Earth. As if that was like a startling thing to be. And I don't know if I could be a stuffed shirt, if I tried, I just don't know how to do it. A long time ago, I worked for a guy who said, you seem to find the humor in everything. And I said, that's kind of funny. All right. So I don't know, in a pressure packed environment, like a hospital where you're bringing new life into the world, sometimes you're ushering life out. There's a lot of tension here. And a small mistake can turn into a big problem. And if we're not loose and you've played baseball, right? If you're not loose, bad things happen, you'll tighten up at the plate. You won't be able to break on the ball quickly cause you're too tight. I don't want my people to be that way. I want them to know that they can speak freely because their leader is speaking freely. Talk about, let's say your inspiration. You have inspirational figures or inspirational people in your life. Quite a few, actually. I don't know if there's just one. If there's an author, I could mention, I love everything that Peter Drucker writes. I think everybody should read his books if you're managing anything. I'd say that in many ways, my dad who came from another country, he didn't really speak the language, found a way to raise a family. At one point, my mother tells me that he had three jobs just to pay the bills when I was born and found a way to, to make it work. I admire that in him. I admire my mom. Everybody loves my mom. No matter how difficult the situation is, she's always pleasant. And everyone remembers that about her. My step son, Millage, who is an interesting fellow, he's had many challenges in his life and what I love about him is regardless of how complicated his circumstances are, he's always concerned about someone else's needs. Especially somebody that can advocate for themselves. So I think he's going to be someone special when he grows up. Great story here a few years ago. This was right before I married Melanie. We took him to see Santa at the local mall. Right. So he sitting on Santa's lap and Sante asks him, what would you like for Christmas? Little boy. Right. And he says, I want my sister to have this. I want my sister to have that. It took Sanna three tries to get him to ask for what he wanted. So that outward desire to help others, especially those who are challenged at the time. His little sister couldn't speak. So he goes, he figured I'm going to speak on her behalf because she won't be able to communicate this to Santa, that sort of style I think I'd like to be able to emulate going forward. How do you balance the, the vision not going to sleep until the house is in order, but understanding that tomorrow brings new challenges, more opportunities? How do you balance all that with a wife and child? And I'm sure other things that you want to accomplish in your life? Well, Here's my bit of advice. Make sure you marry right. My wife is ridiculously understanding. She's got a rather busy career of her own. She's a school psychologist. She is another one of those people that is doing God's work. She has an emotionally challenged group of kids that she specializes in. And I hear it in her voice each day, about how passionate she is about these kids and what they need because on their own. They're not going to make it, but if she could provide a little bit of help, they have a shot. It's funny how kids teach you more about yourself, then you can teach. You're exactly right. I wish I had kids earlier. I probably be a better CEO today. I want to circle back to your mom. You mentioned she had a small business. What was her business? She had a bridal gown business. So she sold prom dresses and brides dresses. Did some of your entrepreneurial spirit and business mind come from your mom's influence. I don't know if that's really where it came from. I wouldn't even call myself an entrepreneur. There's a book written by an author named Gifford Pincho he takes a spin on the word entrepreneur. He calls it "intrepreneurial."How to get things done inside the corporate setting, I would see myself more as an "intrepreneur." I've never been one to just abide mindlessly, to conform with policy and procedure. I think in healthcare, particularly, we need to find ways to make things simpler, not more complicated. Get from A to B without a hundred steps. Sometimes you get to the third step and you already forgot where you're going. Let alone the next 97, you still have to achieve. So I would not call myself an entrepreneur in the true spirit of an entrepreneur. I think they take risks much greater than I do. I got a sure thing here. I got a great board. I've got a parent company that's investing. I got wonderful staff and I got some of the best doctors in a country working for me. So I'm not a risk-taking entrepreneur and I don't want to disrespect those who are taking those grand chances. You a music man? A little bit. Drummer from what I hear? Yeah. Yeah. So what are your musical tastes? Where they lean? I like it all. I like the ability to, to syncopate and, and ad lib along the way. Rock and roll is a lot of fun to play. I'll sit and play with anybody. I just love it. How does drumming play a part in what you do? You know, as a drummer I learned this in a band I played with in Philadelphia. It was a group of doctors who organized things. We played in my basement. They said to me like, Pete, if we start kind of losing our way, cause it's quite likely cause we're not professionals just play harder. Right. And I, the first time I did it, it just felt so good because they were really wandering away from the song and I just. Got back to two and four really strong. And before, you know it, I was leading from behind, which is kind of my style. I would rather not be up front. I would rather be behind in an architectural mechanism and guiding people who really are in the front of the stage to be able to do the things that it takes to make the groups. Your wife, Melanie? Yes. Where did you meet her? How did- I met her in Philadelphia over a couple of meatballs, right? She joined me at a business dinner. I was having with someone with the Malcolm Baldrige association asking if we were interested in maybe becoming a Malcolm Baldrige certified hospital. Oddly enough, I moved to Connecticut and his businesses here and there's an annual dinner honoring him. She sat down, it was somewhat of a blind date. She got there a little early, the dinner started a little late. So I had my first date with my wife with someone else at the table that I barely knew and she worked really well through it all. So I knew that she could put up with me after that dinner. We had a beer across the street and I'll call it a dive bar. She'll do the same thing. And I just knew that she was someone I could get along with. So that's how I met her. And we've been together now for four years. What do you like to do in and around the city? Right visit with people have folks over. It's why this room was created in a nice fireplace here. I've got a big screen TV. I've got a wife that loves to cook. I help her out in the kitchen. Those are the kinds of things I've been doing when I'm not working, which is most of the time. If you weren't leading Waterbury Health, but you were working for an organization doing something in the greater Waterbury area, what do you think that would be? Oh, I think I would be in the business of developing real estate and bringing in new commerce, new businesses that could take advantage of what this region has taught. So, what are the advantages? I'm here I'm looking for property. All right. You've got real estate here that is usable readily, you've got highways and rail that come in and out of the city, you got proximity to New York and Boston and larger cities like Hartford, right within the state. You're not far from the water. So if you need to get anything to come into a port and make its way into the city, you're not far from it. And you've got a mayor here and a state that is interested in providing incentives for companies that want to set up shop. That's why I think there's a real opportunity in greater Waterbury. When you look at what you're doing, when you look at what Post is doing I imagine if you talk to John Hopkins they're trying to look at what they can relatively accomplish to someone like Yale. Bringing the education downtown, making it highly visible, and then putting their people in an area where you would think the infrastructure has to react to that. You know, businesses have to open, there's going to be foot traffic. There's going to hopefully be options to eat and they're going to need recreation. They're going to exactly thing areas. So, you know, I, I think to your point, yeah. Not having to reinvent the wheel. I would certainly apply that to what's happening in and around the city where we don't need to reinvent the wheel here, we just need to collaborate and roll up our sleeves and do some things together that are not revolutionary ideas, as much as they're just ideas that have been sitting there for a long time that needed to be galvanized and turned into an action plan. And we're that much more powerful as a team than we are a bunch of independents. That's where if we can go out and just let folks know how welcomed they would be here, I think it could be the difference maker and whether the, a prospective employer comes here or goes somewhere else. I don't know about you, if you've interviewed for a job, your gut tells you if you have more than one option, where would I be more comfortable? That's the sort of thing that I'd like to be able to think that I, along with others can do to bring prospective employers here. Talk about that. You know, we talked about it a little bit before, when you look at the, the region of greater Waterbury and it's always been interesting to me to see other areas of the country market assets, like lakes and trails and recreation activities. Doesn't always have to be a formal thing. Is that something that's a attractive or you think should be an attractive asset to people looking at Waterbury? Without a doubt, I had friends that visited and I said, you know what? You're going to love the ride we take. So we drove along the coast. We went up into other areas of the state. The entire ride was just a thrill. It really wasn't about the destination as it was as much about just taking in the nature and the change. Even looking out the windows of my house, you can see the undulation we're sitting right in the trees here. I can see hilltops. It's a beautiful place to live. If you were met with a prospective investor or prospective company, who's looking at the Waterbury area today, what what's what's the narrative, what's the, what's the sales pitch from your viewpoint? You. Coming to town can be part of this to shape it in a way that is very fitting for you and in a way that you'll feel satisfied. That's how I feel. I can talk about healthcare. We have two great hospitals here. Doctors work in both locations by and large, we do a lot of sophisticated things here. There's cancer treatment here. There's open-heart surgery. A lot of great things are done right here. I can talk about that, but what I'd like to tell someone that's coming to town is use me as an example. I came to town, people greeted me with open arms, they knew that this hospital was integral to the local economy and every chance they get, they try to support me. They involve me. And I don't see that at every place I've been. This community has something special and I think when you're treated this way, you feel as though the only thing to do is to help write back. What's realistic to ask of Waterbury in terms of what growth really looks like? Does it essentially boil down to, we need the court, the single investor. We need the magical moment to happen. We need a hundred things to change the optics. You know, what's, what's a, for lack of a better term, the realistic blueprint for how an area like Waterbury goes about marketing itself and starting to create that connective tissue for people who maybe don't have the born and bred experience? A think it's a long shot to think that one entity is going to come to town with a thousand jobs and it's just going to tip the scales. Not to say that we shouldn't try, but that's the home run swing. I think a lots of singles is probably what we need to start working on, making sure that our folks get educated, finish high school, go off and at least get a two year degree, learn a trade, do something useful with the talent that we have here while folks like you and I, and others are spending time letting the rest of this country and perhaps the rest of the world know what the virtues are setting up shop right here in Waterbury and the greater Waterbury region. So, let me ask you a heavy question. It's not intended to be heavy, but when, when the time has come and you look back on your accomplishments as a person, as, as, as a man, it doesn't have to be in a professional setting. What are you hoping that the story is a Peter Adamo? Good family man. Good Dad made a difference in the fields that he was a paid to work in. I and did what he could to help the community that he lived in. 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