BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – Stephen Schilling turned a tiny healthcare clinic for farmworkers into one of the largest networks of nonprofit healthcare clinics in the nation – in the process, helping an untold number of downtrodden, impoverished, and underserved patients.
Over a remarkable 44 year tenure at Clinica Sierra Vista, Schilling’s passion for healthcare equity and justice touched everyone in his considerable orbit, from farmworkers and office clerks, to governors.
Schilling died Saturday night in Oregon, with his wife Dediere and two youngest children at his side. He was 77-years-old.
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The cancer he had beaten twice before returned, and Schilling died from complications associated with his most recent surgery on Dec. 3, according to his daughter, Mari Schilling.
Schilling came to Clinica Sierra Vista in 1972 as a business manager, but despite having no formal training in health care, he was appointed CEO before his 32nd birthday. Schilling transformed the once-failing operation, housed in a trailer in Weedpatch, into a network that serves tens of thousands annually.