96 | Business World Magazine |
November 2013
ACCREDITED EXCELLENCE
Though Lark is exceptionally quick to credit
PHSC’s success to the teamwork and dedica-
tion of the 140 people that work here, while
also recognizing what she calls the vision
and support provided by an engaged board
of directors, there can simply be no overstat-
ing of the beneficial impact Lark has made in
Portland, or for that matter, the healthcare
laundry industry. To put that in perspective
requires some insight on her background.
Long before she was tasked with operational
oversight of PHSC, Lark fulfilled other es-
sential roles. She was among the first of fe-
male inspectors to serve with the National
Council on Compensation Insurance, a role
that routinely found her auditing businesses
to determine if they had been properly quali-
fied based on the codes congruent with the
worker’s comp program. She has also served
as an educator, fulfilled treasury services for
healthcare systems, and concedes that in her
youth, she flipped a lot of hamburgers too.
Lark says the totality of these experiences
taught her to adapt to a variety of manage-
ment structures and operational systems, but
it also fueled a certain yearning. “I always said
that if I had an opportunity to run a business,
I would try to do it in a way that the employ-
ees felt valued ... a culture that understands
