Catherine Rodriguez. Courtesy photo
VENTURA — The Ventura County Executive Office announced that Assistant County Executive Officer Catherine Rodriguez has been named the County Chief Financial Officer and Shawn Atin has been promoted to Assistant County Executive Officer, Human Resources. The moves follow the announcement of current CFO Paul Derse’s retirement.
“Paul Derse’s well-deserved retirement and the many years of experience he takes with him will be greatly missed,” said County Executive Officer Michael Powers. “But we are extremely fortunate to have a strong leadership team in place that enables us to effectively transition after his departure by reorganizing responsibilities among our CEO leadership team.”
Rodriguez has more than 22 years of senior financial leadership, including CFO and Controller positions in both the private and public sectors. At Tenet Healthcare, one of the nation’s leading health care organizations, she collaborated with teams of experts for the successful financial turnaround of five separate private hospitals. She also served as the CFO of San Bernardino County’s Arrowhead Regional Medical Center. In 2007, she joined the Ventura County Health Care Agency as CFO and again demonstrated her fiscal skills in working to strengthen the financial positions of the Ventura County Medical Center and the agency. While helping to establish a balanced budget, Catherine supported important growth of critical health services such as the Trauma and Pediatric programs and VCMC’s new hospital wing project.
She was promoted to Assistant CEO in 2011, where she has served as the Director of Labor Relations. During this time, she also supported the County’s Lean Six Program and provided extensive fiscal support to the Health Care Agency, including serving as the Interim CFO. In her new role, Rodriguez will continue to actively support the VCMC as the Interim VCMC CFO until a CFO is hired, and will provide ongoing support to VCMC’s new CFO.
Human Resources Director, Shawn Atin, will assume responsibility for Labor Relations as Assistant CEO and Human Resources Director. Atin was hired by the County in June of 2015. In his leadership roles in both Riverside and Los Angeles County, Atin developed significant experience in labor relations. In addition to his extensive public sector background, Atin also brings more than 15 years of private sector Human Resources, benefits, pension administration and accounting experience to his new position. He holds Senior Professional in Human Resources, and Certified Employee Benefits Specialist designations.