Through her work with the Foundation for International Missions, Beth Houghton helped establish the New Hope Clinic, a medical facility serving rural patients in Honduras.
After graduating from Tulane and earning a law degree from Stetson University, Beth Houghton (N ’77, MBA ’78) worked on the staff of Arthur Andersen & Co. for seven years, rising through the ranks to become a tax manager in the firm’s Tampa, Fla., office, but she eventually realized something was missing.
“It’s kind of trite, but I guess I just didn’t feel particularly fulfilled,” recalls Houghton.
So she quit. Despite not having another job lined up or even an idea of what she wanted to do next, Houghton walked away from Andersen. Her intention was to take two months off to spend time with her husband and kids before even starting to work on her resume, but fate intervened. Houghton had done some volunteer work for All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla., one of the nation’s leading pediatric hospitals, and when the hospital’s CEO learned that she had left Andersen, he approached her about joining All Children’s.
“I had no experience with health care other than dealing with doctors and their personal tax planning, but that didn’t seem to bother him,” Houghton laughs “So I went to work as CFO and general counsel.”
Beth Houghton (N ’77, MBA ’78) is executive director of the St. Petersburg Free Clinic, which helps thousands of people in need with food, shelter, medical care and financial assistance.
Working in health care, it turned out, gave Houghton the sense of satisfaction she’d been missing. She enjoyed the challenge of integrating sound financial management with the hospital’s broad social mission, and she also branched out onto the operational side, leading brainstorming sessions with various departments to help improve patient experiences.
“It was a wonderful opportunity,” Houghton says. “Every day I knew we were making a huge difference in people’s lives, and that was very rewarding.”
During Houghton’s tenure, hospital revenues grew to $350 million annually, and more importantly, working capital grew from a tenuous $3 million when she joined to a healthy $150 million.
In 1998, after 12 years with All Children’s, Houghton again decided it was time for a change, and she spent the next 10 years pursuing a variety of interests. In 1999, she became a founding director and chairman of Signature Bank in St. Petersburg, which she helped build into a strong community bank with seven branches and $278 million in assets before it was acquired by Whitney Holding Corp. in 2007.
In 2001, she joined the board of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, eventually becoming board chairman and a member of the executive committee. She also began teaching, serving as an adjunct faculty member at Stetson University and the University of South Florida.
Perhaps closest to her heart, she began doing mission work and helped establish a medical clinic in rural Honduras, doing everything from raising funds to support operations and physician salaries to overseeing construction of the facility.
She also joined the board of the St. Petersburg Free Clinic, which operates a health center as well as a food bank, two homeless shelters, and a social service agency that offers a variety of resources for individuals and families in need. When the clinic’s long-time executive director announced her intention to retire, Houghton realized it would be a perfect fit.
“I had a lot of nonprofit and healthcare experience, but the Free Clinic does a lot more than health care,” says Houghton, who became the clinic’s executive director in December 2011. “It was an opportunity to use a lot of what I knew yet grow at the same time. It wasn’t something I could do with my eyes closed in other words.”
Today, more than 30 years after starting what she thought would be a lifelong career in tax planning, Houghton is happy that she followed her heart and made a healthy choice.
“It’s rewarding to know that everything I do goes towards helping folks who need the help, and often we’re the only place they can go,” Houghton says. “We really make a big difference in people’s lives, and that feels good.”
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