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March 17, 2008 MY FIRST DOLLAR

Serving The Stars … And Refugees

Toward the end of the Vietnam War, Christopher Dadlez, president and CEO of Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center, found himself in charge of a mess hall at a refugee camp in Pennsylvania that housed 1,000 Vietnamese.

Fresh out of college in 1975, Dadlez took the job, where he worked daily with bewildered, non-English-speaking people who had just been plunked into the United States.

Prior to working at the refugee camp, he had previous restaurant experience, working as a burger flipper before graduating up to waiter in the rustic-sounding Penn Harris Motor Inn in Harrisburg. The name might sound like an economy joint, but it was actually a four-star hotel that housed a number of famous figures who’d performed in a nearby concert arena.

 

Reagan And Led Zeppelin

Unlike his gig at the refugee camp that put Dadlez into contact with the unknown masses affected by the Vietnam War events, this job brought him face-to-face with some 1970s icons. He served movie actress Helen Hayes, as well as rock bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Dadlez reports no trashed hotel rooms or shocking behavior, but the bands were “a little wilder” than the typical guest.

They were just a little louder and more obnoxious, mostly: “Rock stars are rock stars,” Dadlez says complacently.

Dadlez also waited on, and exchanged banter with, a pre-presidential Ronald Reagan. Reagan and his wife were on the campaign trail — Dadlez doesn’t remember what it was for, although it was prior to his run on the presidency.

“It was just kind of neat,” he said. “He really did like to joke around. He was just a really cheerful and upbeat individual.”

 

Career Crisis

But Dadlez’s food management jobs were side work — he had been studying for a career in pharmacology after his undergraduate studies.

He had always gravitated toward health care, but wasn’t so sure he wanted a career in medicine or the sciences.

That led to a post-graduation career crisis when Dadlez decided to take some time off to figure out his future, and wound up at the refugee camp.

After the camp was dismantled, he decided it was time to go back to school, this time to get a graduate degree in health care administration. He and his wife moved to Richmond, Va., for his schooling, and Dadlez worked for a time in an all-female psychiatric ward. The job was meant to give Dadlez experience in hospital work, but it made him certain that he didn’t want to work in a psychiatric ward ever again.

“A year of doing that was plenty,” he said.

But administrative work was an ideal blend of health care and business, and after getting his degree. He went on to a hospital in south-central Pennsylvania, and then to a number of positions in Maryland and Ohio before settling in Connecticut.

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