Health Compass Newsletter

When Shawn Teevin was a defensive end for the Knappa High School Loggers football team, he wasn't told not to hit head-on-head. One bad hit resulted in a broken neck, and he recalls going to the old Columbia Hospital for treatment.

Now, as the largest donor to the BuildCMH Expansion Project, which will triple the size of CMH, he says the expansion is what the community needs in a big way.

A community cause

Shawn, who was born and raised in Clatsop County, and his wife, Paula, have committed $500,000 in cash and in-kind donations to the project. They are the owners of Teevin Bros. Land & Timber Company, headquartered in Knappa, with business operations in rock quarries, forest products, trucking and material handling.

The Teevins say the hospital's partnership with Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and having access to specialty care in a rural area has benefited their employees, friends and family members. They've been friends of the hospital and major donors for other projects in the past, including the CMH‑OHSU Knight Cancer Collaborative.

"As in any community, the hospital is a pinnacle in the infrastructure," Paula says. "At some point, we're all going to have to use it, right? So [it's] very, very important."

The family has worked with the BuildCMH project team to incorporate their in-kind donation of Oregon rock and timber products into the design — a community connection fitting into the project's four guiding principles to use local products and talent whenever possible.

Happy to support

Growing up in the area, Shawn says that in the past, people from the region wanted to go to Portland for advanced health care treatments. But with a new hospital facility and state-of-the-art technology attracting high-quality providers, he says the hospital will fill a need for those in the community, living across the Columbia River and down the north coast of Oregon.

"We think it's an amazing project," says Shawn. "We're just happy to have the opportunity to [support] it. I think it's a worthwhile project to back and would encourage anybody and everybody, for whatever amount they can afford, to be a part of it."

Categories: CMH Foundation