The following story features administrator Elisa Auguste, CASC, of Precision Care Surgery Center, a partner of Regent Surgical. We congratulate Elisa on being named an honoree of the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA)’s 10 Under 40 in 2025!
By: Robert Kurtz, ASC Focus
ASCA debuted its 10 Under 40 Honors program this year. Our nomination period was open between March 3 and May 3, and we welcomed our members and nonmembers to nominate their exemplary colleagues, reports and supervisors for the honors. While anyone was allowed to submit a nomination, nominees had to be ASCA members or work in an ASCA member facility. They also had to be under the age of 40 as of December 31, 2025, and have made a measurable impact at their facility and/or in the ASC community in the past 12 months.
We got a sizeable number of nominations, and our judges had a difficult time picking the honorees given their glowing records. The judges made their decision based on two criteria:
- Specific actions the nominee took in the past year to help their facility achieve or exceed financial, operational, clinical or charity goals
- Specific actions the nominee took in the past year to influence the ASC community as a whole
The judges were Andrew Weiss, CASC, administrator of Summit Surgical Center in Voorhees, New Jersey; Laurie Roderiques, RN, CAIP, CASC, director of clinical services and infection prevention consultant for Ambulatory Healthcare Strategies in Rochester, New York; and Tina DiMarino, RN, CASC, chief executive officer and cofounder of Custom Surgical Partners in Street, Maryland.
“Learning more about my younger colleagues was a delightful experience,” says Weiss, who has been in the ASC community for almost 25 years.
“It was an honor to be a judge for the initial 10 Under 40 Honors program, although it was a challenge,” says Roderiques, who has been an RN for 44 years and working in the ASC community for more than 30 years. “With so many deserving nominees, keeping it to 10 was difficult. Congratulations to those chosen and those nominated. Keep up the great work!”
DiMarino has been working in the ASC community for 25 years. “It was very inspiring to see so many talented leaders in the industry who were nominated,” she says. “It made choosing just 10 challenging. Congratulations to the winners!”
ASCA would like to thank Andrew Weiss, CASC, Laurie Roderiques, RN, CAIP, CASC, and Tina DiMarino, RN, CASC.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ASCA congratulates the honorees and thanks them for their invaluable contributions to the ASC community.
Austin Cheng
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Facility Name: Gramercy Surgery Center
City: New York City and Flushing
State: New York
Casey Wokocha
Title: Administrator
Facility Name: Spring Valley Surgery Center
City: Las Vegas
State: Nevada
Jessica Hovland, RN
Title: Senior Director
Facility Name: UT Health Austin’s Ambulatory Surgery Center
City: Austin
State: Texas
Emily Pond, RN
Title: Administrator
Facility Name: Barbour Orthopaedics Surgery Center
City: Atlanta
State: Georgia
Elisa Auguste, CASC
Title: Administrator
Facility Name: Precision Care Surgery Center
City: East Setauket
State: New York
Joseph Nguyen
Title: Surgery Center Manager
Facility Name: Trinity Surgery Center
City: San Jose
State: California
Whitney Peyton
Title: Chief Executive Officer and Facility Administrator
Facility Name: Surgery Center of Des Moines
City: West Des Moines
State: Iowa
Jennifer Pagel, RN
Title: Quality Manager and Safety Officer
Facility Name: OAM Surgery Center at MidTowne
City: Grand Rapids
State: Michigan
Kayli Thompson, RN
Title: Administrator/Clinical Director
Facility Name: Crater Lake Surgery Center
City: Medford
State: Oregon
Honorable Mentions
We would like to honor Amy Kang and Michael Klein along with our 10 other honorees. Kang and Klein were under 40 when we received their nomination but turned 40 before December 31, 2025. One of our nomination criteria was that nominees would have to be under the age of 40 as of December 31, 2025.
Amy Kang, RN
Title: Clinical Manager
Facility Name: Sutter Health’s East Bay Endoscopy Center
City: Emeryville
State: California
Michael Klein
Title: Administrator
Facility Name: Retinal Ambulatory Surgery Center of New York
City: New York
State: New York