BUTLER TWP — 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.

Cyprian said he works closely with the medical center and said each of the rotating directors brings in new ways of managing the day-to-day operations of the facility.

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 starting in 1997.

While Nealon retired after leaving Butler, Wood has since served as director of VA centers in Oklahoma City and Boise, Idaho; Moreland became the director of the VA in Pittsburgh; and Finegan worked his way up to become network director of the Veterans Integrated Service Network 11 in Ann Arbor, Mich.

“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.

Roland W. Hipsley held the position from 1957 to 1969, making him the longest serving director. Peter Stajduhar served from 1991 to 1997.

Cyprian said the change in directors doesn't seem to interfere with patient services.

“It's still the same people providing the care,” he said. “There are changes in the day-to-day operations, but as far as care goes, life goes on.”

Cyprian added the VA has assistant directors that help ease the transition.

“Somebody is there to step up to the plate,” he said.

VA officials said during the past two years it has had about a 13 percent turnover rate for medical center directors across the country.

Officials did not comment on the turnover rate in Butler specifically, but said the center is working to fill the position.

“VA is committed to finding the right candidate to fill this critical leadership position and has already begun making efforts to attract highly qualified talent,” a spokesman said in an e-mailed statement. “As such, VA will engage in a multipronged approach that includes utilizing various recruitment flexibilities through a variety of recruitment sources to include USAJobs website, external job boards, and referrals from the Veterans Health Administration's National Executive Recruitment Program.”

She said the VA also will offer recruitment, relocation and retention incentives to attract qualified candidates.

Raymond R. Decker, MD, 1946-1948Joseph L. Campbell, MD, 1948-1952Charles H. Livingston, MD, 1952-1955Claud E. Carter, MD, 1955-1957Roland W. Hipsley, MD, 1957-1969Irvin H. Trincher, MD, 1970-1971Joseph Paris, 1971-1972Paul Kennedy, 1972-1974Ronald H. Wallace, 1974-1975A. Paul Morris, 1975-1980David E. Simmons, 1980-1985Reginald L. Mosior, 1985-1990Peter Stajduhar, MD., 1991 — 1997Mike Moreland, 1997 — 2000Mike Finegan, 2001 — 2003David Wood, 2004 — 2007Patricia Nealon, 2007 — 2011John Gennaro, 2012 — 2015