Starr and Gary Piner

Proprietors, Piner’s

We’ve personally supported the Queen for many years, and Piner’s has long helped the hospital with in-kind donations. (In the photo behind us, Gary’s dad – Wendell Piner – helps to move a patient from the old Parks Victory Hospital to the new Queen of the Valley Hospital in 1958). We delivered our three children at this hospital. Gary had a four-way bypass performed there 15 years ago and had an angioplasty just a few months ago.

We were first inspired to give to the neurosurgery unit in 2005, when Gary’s mother had a cerebral vascular event that required her to be airlifted to Santa Rosa. Our family had to travel and stay in that city to be by her side, and that really underscored the need for better neurosurgery capabilities in our own community. We’ve known what it’s like to have to travel in a medical emergency – it just adds more trauma when you’re already in a state of grief. We’re so fortunate to have this expertise right here in Napa now.