Jo Campbell Has A Superpower

It’s almost a superpower,” says Heather Wylie of her friend Jo Campbell. “Jo has an amazing, gracious ability to get people from very different perspectives to talk with each other, even with so many hot button topics in our community these days.”

Promoting open, positive communication serves Jo well as the CEO of Hill Country Community Clinic in Shasta County, CA. Started by four friends on a donated plot of land in 1985, Hill Country’s 200 employees now serve North State families from three centers in Redding and Round Mountain, focusing on providing holistic, high-quality dental, medical and behavioral health care.

“The goal of the clinic is to provide health and wellness to people, including kids and families, no matter where they are with their health,” Jo says. Heather adds, “The work they do is really treating the whole person and the whole community, and Jo is on the front lines. She’s always asking, ‘How is this policy going to support our community? Who is this helping? Who is it not? Where are our blind spots?’ I think all CEOs should have behavioral health backgrounds like Jo.”

A life helping those without homes

While Jo’s master’s degree in clinical social work may have given her the tools for kind communication and community collaboration, Jo also has a naturally deep compassion for others, an authentic humility, and a passion for social justice. Throughout her life, she has invested time in serving those without homes. She first discovered the field of social work while working with a homeless outreach organization as a freshman in college. Since then, Jo has worked with The Salvation Army, emergency services, food pantries, community feeding programs, and even her father’s non-profit co-op, Living Hope, which reaches those struggling with poverty in the Redding area.

“Working with people who find themselves on the edge of the community has always been the place I’ve been drawn to,” Jo says. “So I guess it’s not surprising I ended up at Hill Country, which takes an integrated approach to care. When people are insecurely housed, it’s really hard to deal with anything else they’re trying to deal with in terms of their own health.”

Hill Country owns a fourplex in Burney and holds several long-term leases in Shasta County to offer housing to those previously living outdoors. In Redding, Hill Country provides dormitory-style transitional housing for students ages 18-24 who, at this vulnerable and pivotal time of life, are at risk of being homeless. Under Jo’s direction, the clinic continues to care for those who slip between the cracks.

She walks the walk

As a professor at Shasta College and a Hill Country board member, Heather Wylie says Jo “really walks the walk,” noticing people who tend to be overlooked. “Equity, inclusion and diversity are super buzzy words right now,” Heather says, “but Jo has been doing that forever, not because it’s the popular thing to do, but because it’s the right thing to do.”

Before coming to Hill Country, Jo spent nine years working at Sun Oaks Tennis and Fitness in Redding, first as tennis coordinator and then as club manager. Julie Garcia, who owned the business at the time, describes Jo as honest and authentic, a “bulldog” who follows through despite any obstacle, and a fun person to be around. Julie recalls the warm and natural way Jo welcomed new families into the tennis community.

“She’s got a great personality and she’s such a caring person,” Julie says. “She was really able to get people connected with each other.”

Jo finds motivation for her daily work from her spiritual life and from the love of friends and family. She and her husband have two adult sons and are expecting their first grandchild in August. As she eagerly anticipates becoming a grandparent, Jo reflects on her own parenting experience. “There are so many things I didn’t know about myself until I became a parent,” she says, “and there is so much about being a parent that informs the work I do now. Parenting isn’t a season; parenting is a lifestyle.”

As she reiterates the oft-quoted advice to parents to enjoy every fleeting moment with their young children, Jo also encourages North State parents to note the beauty of their own change and growth during the busyness of raising children. “If I had it to do over again,” she concludes, “I would have paid attention differently to my own development, to what was growing inside of me. My kids were growing; my kids were also growing me.”