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California State University, Fresno​

Todd Suntrapak serves as president and chief executive officer of Valley Children’s Healthcare. Based in California’s Central Valley, it is one of only 13 free-standing pediatric specialty healthcare systems in the country. For more than 25 years Mr. Suntrapak has served Valley Children’s Healthcare in various areas, including leadership roles in strategy, clinical operations and business development. He has helped advance the hospital into a comprehensive delivery network now serving 1.3 million children. With a vision to expand healthcare access so that every child in the Central Valley is either 30 minutes or 30 miles from Valley Children’s care, Mr. Suntrapak leads a team of 640 physicians, 3,500 staff and nearly 800 volunteers and Guild members who deliver high-quality pediatric care.

Under his leadership, Valley Children’s Healthcare has achieved and maintained an AA rating from Standard & Poor’s, continuous Joint Commission accreditation, recognition in U.S. News and World Report as one of the “Best Children’s Hospitals” in the nation, a Leapfrog Top 10 hospital recognition for patient safety and was named by Becker’s Healthcare as one of the “150 Top Places to Work in Healthcare.” Acutely aware of the extraordinarily high rates and deleterious consequences of childhood poverty, chronic disease and food insecurity, Mr. Suntrapak shaped the organization’s vision for the future to address children’s health where they live, learn and play. Valley Children’s Healthcare has launched the Guilds Center for Community Health fueled by a $5 million endowment by the hospital Guild, to change the trajectory of children’s health by improving it in powerful and significant ways.

Mr. Suntrapak also serves in leadership roles in several organizations including the California Children’s Hospital Association, the California Hospital Association, the Hospital Council of Northern and Central California and the American Hospital Association’s Region 9 Policy Board. He is a mentor for​ the Carol Emmott Foundation, an organization that advances gender equity in healthcare leadership.

In recognition of his significant professional accomplishments and contributions to the health of children in the Central Valley, the Board of Trustees of the California State University and California State University, Fresno are proud to confer upon Todd Suntrapak the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.