BUTLER TWP — The incoming director of VA Butler Healthcare said communication and community outreach will be the hallmarks of his tenure.

He pledges to hold regular public meetings to keep people up to date on the VA’s ongoing construction project and to give veterans a chance to voice their concerns.

David Cord, a former U.S. Air Force lawyer and 14-year veteran of the Veterans Affairs system, also said he doesn’t plan to follow a pattern of short-term stays the system has seen for decades.

He called VA Butler a familiar and “great place” that offers him a chance to reach out to the community in a way larger VA systems often don’t permit.

“I can see myself being here for quite some time,” Cord said, adding he worked at VA Butler Healthcare from 2006 to 2008 as the director of human resources.

Cord starts Nov. 16. He will replace former director John Gennaro, who left this summer to take a position as director of the Cincinnati VA Medical Center.

A Butler Eagle review this year found the system gets a new director about every four years. Since 1946, only two of the system’s 18 directors made it beyond a fifth year.

In the VA system, administrators are allowed to pursue the positions they prefer, Cord said. He pursued the Butler posting — which he called a “lateral type move” from his current job as the director of the Erie VA Medical Center — because of his desire to be closer to family members who live in and around Pittsburgh and because its size appealed to him.

Cord said the system’s size — it serves about 19,000 veterans in four counties — promotes a feeling of “community ownership” at the VA.

He said he intends to institute regular town hall-style meetings for the public — a practice he carried out in Erie. Cord said he averaged about one public meeting per month in Erie, in addition to “informal” visits to veterans’ social and civic organizations.

“I like to have the feedback of the veterans I’m serving,” he said. “For me, the best way I can oversee running their facility is meeting and talking with them.”

Cord’s first town hall meeting will be 5 to 6 p.m. Nov. 16, at VA Butler Healthcare Building 1, Room 403, 325 New Castle Road.

Cord has been a lawyer in the Navy and served more than a decade in posts at Veterans Affairs systems in Maryland, Butler, Pittsburgh and Erie.

He called the VA Butler Healthcare Center construction project in Center Township one of the biggest challenges facing him as the incoming director.

Cord pledged to hold public meetings focused specifically on the project’s progress and timeline and to be “very actively involved on a regular basis,” in oversight of the project.

The VA will ultimately lease the 168,000-square-foot health care center being built on North Duffy Road, but a team of VA officials based here and in Washington, D.C., is overseeing the project, Cord said. He intends to help oversee the project’s timeliness and ensure the facility meets the needs of veterans in the system.

“I want to make sure on a regular basis that I’m updating the community,” on the project, Cord said.

The developer, Cambridge Health Solutions, has 31 months to complete construction, and the project’s deadline is near the end of 2017.

The VA’s construction project also involves deciding what to do with the system’s current health center. Cord said no decisions have been made on the future of that building, but he wants to begin exploring options as soon as possible.

“It will be my intention to pursue any and all opportunities moving forward,” he said.

Cord said his focus on communication comes in part from allegations that put him at the center of a controversy over a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease at the VA’s Pittsburgh hospital system in 2012, as well as hidden wait lists for veterans in the system.

Critics have said Cord, who was then the deputy director of Pittsburgh’s VA system, advised against publicly disclosing the outbreak, which killed six people and sickened at least 16. U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, also accused Cord of misleading him about the existence of lists containing the names of veterans waiting more than 30 days to see a doctor.

Cord has repeatedly denied the accusations, and on Friday he said the experience was a reminder of the complexity of being an administrator in health care.

“I think if anything it reminded me that you can never over-communicate with the veterans, community and stakeholders,” Cord said.

He brushed aside a question about whether he believed he had been treated fairly over the allegations.

“People lost their life in this, so how I was treated in the process isn’t very relevant,” he said.

Cord said he wants to build on the Butler system’s “outstanding” operating record and explore ways to expand veteran care through partnership services. About 99 percent of patient visits in the VA Butler Healthcare system occur within 30 days, Cord said.

Butler is a “level 3” system that focuses on primary care and some mental health and community living services. For more complex surgical or specialty care, veterans must go to Pittsburgh’s VA system or use partnerships with community hospitals.

“We need to make sure we explore every option, whether it’s those relationships between facility within the (VA) system, or with community providers,” Cord said.