Sutton selected as Southeastern Alumna of the Year
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
by: Tonya Lowentritt
ALUMNA OF THE YEAR – Southeastern Louisiana University has selected Michele Sutton, president and chief executive officer of North Oaks Health System and a 1984 and 1988 Southeastern graduate, as the Southeastern Alumni Association 2019 Alumna of the Year. Sutton will be honored this fall at the Alumni Association’s annual awards evening held on campus as part of Southeastern’s Homecoming Week.
HAMMOND – The President and Chief Executive Officer of North Oaks Health System
has been selected as the Southeastern Louisiana University Alumni Association 2019
Alumna of the Year.
Michele Sutton, a 1984 and 1988 graduate of Southeastern, will be honored at
the Alumni Association’s annual awards evening this fall as part of Southeastern’s
Homecoming Week.
“With Mrs. Sutton’s guidance, the North Oaks medical staff has grown from 100
to 400 plus providers,” said Beth Carney Ebberman, president of the Alumni Association.
“She has also played an integral role in development of the strategic plan to initiate
the health system’s recent $250 million expansion project, electronic health records,
many new product/service lines, and designation of the medical center as one of five
trauma centers in Louisiana.”
Sutton earned both a bachelor’s degree in marketing and master’s degree in business
administration from Southeastern. She began her tenure at North Oaks Health System
in 1988 as community resources officer and was promoted to executive vice president
and chief operating officer in 2006. In 2012, she took on the additional responsibility
of administrator and chief executive officer for North Oaks Medical Center. The North
Oaks Board of Commissioners appointed her president and chief executive officer of
the health system in January 2017.
She is a previous president and vice president of the American College of Healthcare
Executives’ Southeast Louisiana chapter and led the merger of both state chapters.
She also serves on the American Hospital Association’s Foster G. McGaw Committee and
is a longstanding member of the Louisiana Hospital Association, where she has served
on numerous committees and is a member-at-large for the association’s board of trustees,
its political action committee board of directors, as well as its trust fund’s board
of directors.
Sutton gives back to her alma mater through the Alumni Association, for which
she is a lifetime member, the Lions Athletic Association, for which she is a board
member, and Southeastern’s FeLions, of which she has been a member since 2003.
Through its Annie Awards endeavor, the Greater Hammond Chamber of Commerce bestowed
upon Sutton both an Outstanding Woman in Business Annie Award (1999) and a Legacy
Annie Award (2018). Other honors include recognition in 2007 as a “Woman of the Year”
by “New Orleans CityBusiness” and as one of the “Most Influential Women in Tangipahoa
Parish” by “The Daily Star.” She was also the recipient of the 2007 Golden Pelican
Marketer of the Year Award from the Louisiana Society for Hospital Public Relations
and Marketing.
