The vacant director position with VA Butler Healthcare is not a rare job opening.

In fact, the center gets new leadership about every four years.

None of the medical center’s past five directors hit the five-year mark in the executive role.

“It would be nice to see someone stick around for five years,” said John Cyprian, director of veterans affairs with Butler County.

John Gennaro, the most recent director, announced he was leaving in June to take over as director at the Cincinnati VA Medical Center.

Gennaro’s predecessors, Patricia Nealon, David Wood, Mike Finegan and Mike Moreland, all served during a 14-year window dating to 1997.

“It would be nice if they’d stop using Butler as a steppingstone to bigger facilities,” Cyprian said.

The high turnover rate in Butler isn’t limited to the past two decades.

Since 1946, only two of the center’s 18 directors made it beyond a fifth year.