Edward C. Palacios is CEO of the San Joaquin Valley Rehabilitation Hospital; he began his career in healthcare as a nurse. Before participating in a panel on the future of healthcare in the Central Valley, he sat down in the Zócalo green room to tell the story of how he got the nickname Eighty (even though the nickname Eddie never took).
Q. How do you like your eggs?
A. Poached-only slightly runny.
Q. What’s your favorite holiday?
A. Christmas. Because my birthday is the same month, so it’s fun to celebrate all month long.
Q. Do you feel like you miss out on the presents at all?
A. When I was a kid it used to bother me, but now I get into the spirit of the whole month.
Q. What do you miss most about being a nurse?
A. The connection with the patients. It’s such an immediate gratification when you know that you’ve eased someone’s pain or made them feel better or comforted them, even emotionally.
Q. Who taught you how to ride a bike?
A. My father. I think I was five. We had just moved back to Fresno. My dad was in the Air Force, so we moved a lot. But he was born and raised in Fresno so when he got out of the service we came back here.
Q. How do you procrastinate?
A. I think I come up with ways in my mind to do more analysis. I have to come up with more reasons before I make a decision or actually take action.
Q. What salad dressing best describes you?
A. Caesar. It’s got some complexity in the background, it’s very distinctive, and a little bit classic, too.
Q. How much is too much to pay for a haircut?
A. It kind of depends! I think if you have the money and you have the ability and it makes you feel good, who really cares how much it costs? I wouldn’t pay more than $100 for a haircut, that’s for sure. But I wouldn’t hold it against anybody else if they paid more.
Q. How do you cure the hiccups?
A. A spoonful of sugar.
Q. Do you have any nicknames?
A. Eighty. My first name’s Edward, and so occasionally people would call me “Eddie,” although I didn’t really go by it. I was with a group of friends doing a yard sale, and my friend’s aunt used to help us with the Spanish-speaking customers because none of us spoke Spanish. She yelled across the yard for “Eighty” to go get her a burrito. It’s kind of Eddie with an accent, and it stuck.
*Photo by Dalton Runberg.