Walking into the offices of Southern Ohio Health Services Network, you might feel you’ve stumbled upon an impromptu college reunion. Five of the company’s employees are—or will soon be—Xavier alumni. And president and CEO Kim Patton is the reason. The 1994 graduate landed a residency with the company 10 years ago, and since then has held the door open for those in the health services administration program.

“Southern Ohio Health Services had never had a resident before so I became its first one,” Patton says. “Since then, we’ve perpetuated the program.”

Six residents and four interns have passed through the Cincinnati-area company, which provides healthcare to rural areas. Residents shadow senior administrators, go to board meetings, work in the front office and make contact with doctors. Eighty percent end up taking a permanent job at the end of the nine-month residency, and Patton admits that it’s hard to lose the ones that leave.

“They bring the Xavier tradition with them,” Patton says. “Our responsibility to them is to open doors.”