Chairman of the Board of Directors, and I now call this meeting to order. Before we proceed with the formal business of the meeting, I'd like to introduce the members of your Board of Directors. I will ask each of them to stand as I call their names. In addition to me, they are John Chitzy, Don Correll, Yvonne Kuehl, Joan Herman, Leslie Katz, John Maupin, Nancy Slickne, Ed Shaw and Mark Tarr. We will now proceed to the business of this meeting.
As you entered the meeting room, you should have received an agenda for the meeting and the rules of conduct that will govern the meeting. I will present at today's meeting, and Patrick Darby will act as Secretary. Mr. Secretary, will you please read the report on the procedural formalities?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have an affidavit from the firm responsible for mailing our proxy materials confirming that the notice of the annual meeting, the proxy statement and proxy cards were duly mailed to stockholders of record as of March 7, 2019. A list of those stock holders is present at this meeting and is available for inspection. This list has been available for a period in excess of 10 days.
The company has appointed Deborah Baker as the Inspector of Election for this meeting. Ms. Baker has taken and signed an oath faithfully to execute the duties of Inspector of Election. Also report that the preliminary vote count indicates that a quorum is present at this meeting. The 3 items to be voted on at this meeting are listed on the agenda.
These items are more fully described in the proxy statement previously made available to stockholders. The company did not receive any stockholder nominations or proposals for this meeting. There will be a period for questions and comments about these agenda items before voting. Later in the meeting, there will be another period for general questions and comments from stockholders. Questions and comments must comply with our rules for this meeting.
Okay. Thank you. The first item of business to be voted on today is the election of 11 directors to serve until our 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. The Board of Directors nominees are the only person standing for election. So I declare that the nominations are closed.
A second, the nominations.
The second proposal concerns the ratification of the appointment of our independent registered public accounting firm. The ratification of the appointment by the audit committee of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as our independent registered public accounting firm. It's the 2nd item business to be voted on, and I move for approval of this proposal.
A second proposal.
The 3rd item of business to be voted on today is the approval of the compensation of our named executive officers. And I move the approval of this proposal.
I second the proposal.
Okay. We will now proceed to the period set aside for questions and comments regarding the proposals only. As mentioned earlier, there will be an opportunity later in the meeting for general questions and comments. There being no questions or comments on the proposals, it is now time to proceed to voting on the agenda items. The polls are now open as of can somebody give me 11:03 Central Time.
If you previously voted by proxy, you do not need to vote by ballot unless you wish to change your vote. However, if any shareholder present has not yet cast a vote or wishes to change a prior vote, you may do so by completing a new ballot. If you need a ballot, please raise your hand now and we will bring one to you. I guarantee you we have a lot of ballots. Okay.
So there being no further ballots, I declare the polls closed at 7:0:4. 7:0:4, very efficient. I ask that the Inspector of Elections prepare a report on the final voting results and submit it to the Secretary when complete. So I'm now going to ask the Secretary to present the preliminary voting results.
Thank you. Based on the preliminary results received from the Inspector of Election, the stockholders overwhelmingly have elected each of the 11 nominees to serve on the Board of Directors until the 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, ratified the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as our independent registered public accounting firm and approve the compensation of our named executive officers.
Okay, great. Thank you. I will now open the floor for general questions and comments. Okay. There being no further there being no questions, the formal portion of this meeting is now complete.
So I move to adjourn this meeting.
I second the motion.
With that, I declare this 2019 Annual Meeting of the Stockholders adjourned. Okay? Good. That's done. It now gives me a great honor and pleasure on behalf of the entire Board of Directors and Management to recognize and thank all of the company's employees who have worked so diligently and consistently to make Encompass Health one of the preeminent providers of post acute health care services in our country.
We appreciate their dedication and hard work, helping our patients recover from injury or illness and learn to cope with chronic medical conditions. The Outstanding employee achievement award allows us to recognize the extraordinary efforts and contributions of our employees, who are the foundation of this company's success. Each year, one outstanding employee is chosen from every hospital based on 4 criteria: contributions to extraordinary to an extraordinary patient experience team spirit and cooperation, commitment to continuous quality improvement and lastly, going above and beyond the call of duty. From these hospital winners, each regional leadership team selects a regional outstanding employee. From the regional winners, the executive team selects 1 employee to receive the outstanding employee achievement award.
And I can tell you from having witnessed 10 of these sessions, this is one tough job because these are outstanding men and women. Last evening, the Board of Directors had the pleasure of hosting the regional award winners and their guests at a gala held in their honor. It's an annual event that the Board looks forward to because we experience the passion and the enthusiasm our employees have for their patients. It's palpable. The Annual Gala is an uplifting experience for us, and we thank the honorees for allowing us to host this event in their honor.
At this time, I'd like to ask our President and CEO, Mark Tarr, to introduce this year's winners.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It truly is an honor for me to introduce this select group of our cherished employees. Before I move into this year's finalists and recipients on a regional basis, I want to introduce last year's finalist that was voted as the OEAA representative for the company, Karen De Loca, would you please stand? Karen is here with her daughter who also works for Encompass Health.
Carolyn. Congratulations. You have represented this award extremely well. You have exemplicated this award in the past. You certainly did it this year and there's no doubt that you will continue to represent this award in your facility.
Now, on to this year's recipients and finalists. Let me start first with Barbara Mayes from our Franklin, Tennessee. Barbara is here with her daughter, Megan. So Megan, we appreciate you being here as well. Next up is Cody LaRue from Petersburg, Virginia.
Cody is here with his guest, Christy Crowder. Christy, thank you. Next up is Laura Young from Portland, Maine. Laura is here with her husband, Patrick. Next up is Next up, we have Vincent Cortez from Humble, Texas.
He's here with his wife, Yousa Handy. Thank you. Next up is Sandy Cordova from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who's here with guest, Joe, her husband. And then finally, it's with the great honor to introduce Eddie Zamora from our Miami facility, who is here with his wife, Susanna. Eddie is this year's recipient of the OEAA Award.
Outstanding. Now, we have a brief video I would like to show you that I think portrays all of our recipients this year.
At the time I started my career originally in Toms River, I really didn't know anything about rehabilitation. But as I worked there and I saw that the patients get a great recovery. They do 3 hours of therapy a day. I think it's a wonderful program for everybody. I did have my father come into the hospital time.
Here located at Franklin, where we're inside the hospital, you get to see it on a daily basis that the patients are up and moving around. And I can see sometimes you'll notice a patient not moving so well in the beginning, but then a few days later, they're up and walking. And I think our therapists really do a great job.
Anytime that we give of our self, I think it's a positive thing. And I think it just reinforces to the patients how much we care about them here. That we go that extra mile that we didn't have to do, but because we care enough about them to make sure that they're warm or make sure that they're they know they're cared for. I was raised with great examples. My parents, they're phenomenal.
My dad, he worked in construction all my life. And I saw him have such a great work ethic that it's just something that I learned how to do and I that's expected of me. My husband, he's wonderful. Mike, he's, he works every day. He takes care of our family, you know, and it always has.
So I just come from a line of people that enjoy what they do and they're dedicated to it. And I think if you're going to be dedicated,
I love the creativity that's involved. When you meet someone, you have to figure out how you are going to adapt your environment that you have here to simulate theirs and prepare them to go back home safely. So you may not have all the supplies or the exact setup that they have, but you have to be very creative and kind of figure out how you're going to achieve that in this setup. I also like the there's a lot of psychology involved in OT. Anytime you're working with people, you really have to get to know them and really use that therapeutic use of self where it's not just you physically healing them, it's mentally and emotionally and helping restore that whole person.
The value I most resemble would be strong together as a husband and as an employee. Most thing that I can remember would be the Harvey tragedy we had. Being here as an employee, we were here with the emergency crew and we had to pull together as one team for the safety of our employees and our staff and our patients. And at the same time, while we were actually here working, we got stranded. Basically, we got intake of over 12 feet of water in our house.
And during the whole storm, we were basically pulling through knowing that we basically couldn't do nothing. But I mean, we had to strive for what we have here as a hospital, as a company. And as a spouse being at home, I mean, it was devastating actually going home after the water actually went down. We saw the damage, all our values being basically destroyed and basically seeing the damage and the sad faces on our kids was actually real heartbreaking. But I mean, even to the point where we had us put together, me and my wife.
I love my job. I love what I do. I started here 12 years ago as a student. I did a 12 week rotation. To be honest, I wasn't sure I wanted to work with adults when I first got here.
It was
very challenging. However, at the end of the 12 weeks, I realized how rewarding it is. It is such a joy to be able to come in and to sit and listen to my patients, listen to what brings them meaning in their life, what brings them joy and what they really want to be able to do when they get out of the hospital. And so, I enjoy advocating for my patients, advocating for them to be able to go home when they leave here, advocating for them to be able to get back to those meaningful occupations. For some people, it's to be able to just be home with their family, maybe interact with their grandkids.
For some people, it's to be able to get back to work, to be able to get back out on the golf course, maybe just to go shopping at Target. So I try to integrate a lot of that into the treatment sessions that we do, so that people feel like they understand, the purpose of the treatments. They understand that they're going to be able to leave here, function at home, be able to function in their community and get back to what they love.
It's always come natural to me to reach out and help when others need it. And as I'm going to school, there were maybe different situations that we're being taught on that we don't understand, we don't get the full grasp at the moment. But the moment I started practicing, it just came natural. And I was impressed by that, that how we just come natural to help others and to go above and beyond because they need you. And for us here in the hospital in general in the medical field, it could be just another patient.
But for them, it's that one time that they're in the rehab hospital. And that I understand that, so that's why I try to go the extra step to help them.
The Encompass Health value that I align most closely with is setting the standard. I think they're all extremely important. But setting the standard in all of those areas is very for other people that I work with. This has been a great experience for me. I really enjoy the leadership role that I'm in as a hospital as well as continuing to be able to provide patient care that is, that's my true passion and why I do what I do.
I just I love being a physical therapist.
Love this meeting. It's great. So again, on behalf of the Board, congratulations to all of the winners, and thank you very much for all you do for our company. We now have concluded the entire agenda for this meeting. So I want to thank everybody for attending today, But our meeting is officially adjourned.