Ms. Brickel was born and raised in Alaska. She came to the Matanuska Susitna Valley as a teen and graduated from Palmer High School. In 1984 she began work in purchasing at Valley Hospital in Palmer a small nonprofit hospital. She continued with the hospital moving to a staff accountant position in 1989 experiencing the growth and merger with a for-profit corporation and construction of MatSu Regional Medical Center. After 23 years of employment at the hospital, Ms. Brickel moved north to Talkeetna and joined the staff of Sunshine Community Health Center as an accountant in November 2007.

As chief staff accountant for SCI-IC she quickly became the “go to” person when questions arose during the implementation of the new Practice Management System/ Centricity EMR Program. Valera’s attention to detail, tenacity in solving problems and keen knowledge of the fiscal operation made her the prime candidate for advancement when the CFO left in April 2009. In filling the role as Finance Director with payroll, accounting, and patient billing under her direction she has expanded her knowledge with both online and conference training.

She received a Hospital Accounting Certificate from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.  She has completed NWRPCA’s CFO Skills series.