Page 16 - YC360 Spring 2021 Edition

A CAREGIVER’S GUIDE TO
SUCCESS
Spectrum Healthcare CEO Remembers Her YC Roots
YC Alumna and Spectrum Healthcare CEO April Rhodes, left, at an event with Camp Verde Mayor Charles German.
full day of school, then back to close up the lab for the day. “Education started seeming more attainable.”
She graduated YC just when ASU opened their first online bachelor’s degree program. “I got accepted and studied family and human development online for 18 months. The very first time I set foot on ASU’s Tempe Campus was to graduate.”
A Therapeutic Approach
She followed her bachelors with a Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy, driving down to Phoenix twice per week every week for 18 months to complete clinicals. As her career progressed, from direct care to supervision to administration, that therapeutic perspective served her well. “You see people as part of a system. Whether you’re working with parents and children, or AHCCCS or care providers, you’re managing the dynamics of a team. It’s emotional intelligence but with a business focus.”
When she isn’t on the frontlines of Healthcare, April
can be found in the Prescott home she shares with her husband, Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes. “We definitely air things out to each other,” she laughs. “It’s good, for both of us, having a partner with a high-pressure job. He knows a lot of about mental health because of me, and I have learned about law enforcement.”
As she catches her breath between Healthcare initiatives, does April have any advice for students at the threshold of their first college experience? “Be bold. If you’re aspiring to something, make it known. Speak up, ask questions. Make sure that people know,” she says, “and the rest will follow.”
by Michael Grady
April Rhodes, MBA, LAMFT and President CEO
of Spectrum Healthcare, is calling from Florida. She’s attending a long-postponed national meeting before returning to the helm of Arizona’s 65-year-old primary care, psychiatry and pediatric care provider. “On a normal day, we’d be moving rapidly,” she says. But COVID-19 has required a higher gear. “Just about the time we secured curbside testing, the vaccine comes online – which is great, but there’s a whole new set of logistical and strategic challenges.” As a former family therapist, she sees the pandemic as a test of both body and spirit. “It’s like the whole world has experienced a traumatic event, and we’ve had to manage from that perspective.”
It all seems a world away from 2008, when the chaos was internal, and April – a 29-year-old student and mother of two young children – set foot on YC’s campus, uncertain of the road ahead.
Prescott and Possibilities
“That was a pivotal time,” she recalls. “I had done everything in reverse. I’d had children, gotten married, and moved to a new state all at once.” She started out in the Valley, working in childcare so her kids got the discount. “No one in my family had gone to college. I’d drive past ASU’s Tempe campus, wondering, ‘what would that be like?’”
She moved to Prescott with the kids, found work as a phlebotomist, and enrolled at YC. There, April found she not only belonged in college, but excelled here. “At YC, they started talking to me about possibilities.” It fueled her work ethic: up at 5 a.m. to draw blood at nursing homes, a
“It has definitely been a wild year.”
16 YC360 A Yavapai College Publication
ALUMNI