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By Dr. Stan Creighton, NVA Founder
After 23 years as a practicing veterinarian, I realized that fewer younger veterinarians were interested in owning a practice, the financial demands, and administrative complexity of running a modern-day hospital. In 1997, I started buying clinics from retiring veterinarians who stayed on to spend their time doing what they loved - practicing medicine. Taking on someone’s veterinary clinic was a responsibility my team and I did not take lightly. We strived to build a doctor-centric veterinary community where veterinarians thrive by giving teams the time to focus on pets, their families and advancing medicine in collaboration with other veterinarians, while NVA took on administrative tasks like accounting, taxes, and payroll. And we believed the best medicine is practiced when local veterinarians craft their own medical approach, so when a hospital joined NVA, we kept the culture, people, and the name intact.
Having handed the reins of NVA to my friend, Greg Hartmann, I am retired but still active at NVA sharing our founding vision with veterinarians and our NVA family. I could not be more proud of what we started in 1997 and who NVA is today.
By Greg Hartmann, Our CEO
When Stan entrusted me with the role of CEO, I was humbled and excited. Every day I work to honor Stan’s vision of creating a community where veterinarians thrive and outstanding veterinary hospitals and resorts deliver progressive and compassionate care to pets and their families.
Today, our dynamic community has grown to over 1,400 hospitals and resorts across the world—including general practices, equine practices, specialty and emergency hospitals, and pet resorts. We are one of the leading organizations in Specialty and Emergency veterinary medicine and a leader in pet care in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. We invest in innovative medical practices, modernizing the pet parent experience and the well-being of our people.
And we never lose sight of what is important - pets, their families, our doctors, our people, and championing the advancement of veterinary medicine.
We are proud to provide:
Industry leading recruiting program - our seasoned recruiters are experts in hiring exceptional doctors and critical staff including hard to find veterinary specialists like neurologists, surgeons and internal medicine.
Digital innovation programs - our digital and technology experts enable our hospitals to offer online drug and food ordering, appointment booking and technology to improve hospital operations.
Wellbeing programs - our trademarked Health of Healers program ensures our doctors care for their own emotional and mental health as they give so much to their patients, clients and teams.
Pet care and veterinary business operations experts - we employ marketing experts, accountants, HR professionals, trainers, and operational experts to help our hospitals and resorts to reach their potential.
To improve the comfort and well-being of pets by providing progressive and compassionate care. We develop a team of individual hospitals and pet resorts that share knowledge to achieve sustainable growth.
For the love of animals and the people who love them.
Integrity
We earn trust by doing the right thing
Innovation
We embrace new thinking
Goal Orientation
We focus on the outcome
Teamwork
We are stronger together
Service Excellence
We aim to always exceed expectations
We lead by
SERVING
We lead by
EMPOWERING OTHERS AND ENABLING GOOD WORK
We lead by
LISTENING AND BEING FAIR
We lead by
SHOWING OUR ENTHUSIASM AND PASSION FOR OUR WORK
We lead by
UNDERSTANDING AND SHOWING WE CARE