Miami Regionals Applauds Graduate Patrick Adams' Path to Chief of Staff at Fairview Health

By Jade Smallwood, Student Writer for the Office of External Relations & Communications


Patrick Adams is the Chief of Staff to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Fairview Health Services in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he works for the Executive Leadership Team. “This is a dream job for this point in my career,” Adams said. His journey began at Miami University Regionals.

Adams started at the Regionals when he was a senior at Springboro High School taking PSEO (Post-Secondary Enrollment Option, now called College Credit Plus) classes. From there, Adams decided to pursue a Kinesiology and Health major at Miami in Oxford, and he took courses at the Regionals every semester.

Adams was in the Honors Program where he served as an Undergraduate Associate for a course taught by Dr. Jennifer Yamashiro. He also was a student worker in the Tutoring and Learning Center at Miami Middletown, tutoring writing and economics. Dr. Yamashiro commends Patrick as exceptional for his professionalism and his entrepreneurial spirit that motivated him to start a business before he even enrolled in college.  “Patrick was a deep thinker, strong communicator, and found great satisfaction in helping his peers. He was an inspiration to members of the Honors Program, then and now,” Dr. Yamashiro said.

When asked about the importance of Miami Regionals, Adams had this to say: “The experience was foundational – the Regionals gave me a strong set of experiences that I leveraged and built upon – Miami Regionals also proved to be a good value and it was affordable.”

After graduating with a bachelor of science degree in Kinesiology and Health in 2014, a year ahead of schedule, he attended Xavier University’s Health Services Administration master’s degree program and was named one of two graduate assistants in Xavier’s Writing Center. With a combination of scholarships and assistantship funding, his tuition was covered.

Between his first and second years at Xavier, an opportunity arose and Adams became an intern at Stanford University Health Care in Palo Alto, California. Adams then returned to Stanford one year later as the System’s Administrative Fellow where he worked with senior leaders across the national health care system.  

Shortly before finishing his management fellowship, an opportunity with Fairview CEO James Hereford emerged, and Adams soon made a move to Minneapolis, Minnesota to work for Fairview Health Services, one of Minnesota’s most geographically accessible health care systems with 12 hospitals and over 33,000 employees. Adams started as Director of Integration, and then last May became Chief of Staff to the CEO, where he now spends his days managing projects and initiatives across the system that are key to Fairview’s strategy.

Asked to recall his most meaningful memories of the Regionals, Adams made an interesting point.

“The mundane moments, the every day tutoring sessions in the Writing Center, and conversations with instructors before class. Looking back, the richest moments were the ones that never felt rich at the time.”