Teen Face: Newman grad Matt Payne

Working the front desk at the Jewish Community Free Clinic, Matt Payne said he was surprised to meet the people who fall through the cracks in the American health care system.

The clinic’s patients, all uninsured, were not just unemployed or undocumented, but also workers earning too much to qualify for subsidized health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and too little to afford their own coverage.

“People you wouldn’t think of would walk into that building,” said Payne, 17, a May graduate from Cardinal Newman High School who volunteered last school year at the clinic that provides $600,000 worth of services a year.

Payne, a lanky 6-foot-4 all-leaguer in tennis and soccer who also posted a 4.4 academic average and was class valedictorian, said the experience confirmed his intention to pursue a health career blending management and patient care. “I wanted to change the system; to make it better,” he said.

In the fall, he’ll begin a five-year double-degree program at the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton School of Business and School of Nursing, intent on becoming a hospital administrator. The combination prompted some “weird looks” from other incoming Penn students on a campus tour, Payne said, but it’s crucial to his goal of learning how to manage both the business and the caregiving aspects of a hospital.

“The perfect mixture of both worlds,” Payne said.

It’s also no less than expected by his family, including his mother, Leslie Ju, a Santa Rosa dentist, and his orthodontist father, Brian Payne. For his three-year service project at Newman, Payne and two classmates organized and ran Project Healthy Child, providing dental care to low-income children and adults.

The project was based at Santa Rosa Junior College’s dental clinic, located in the school’s health science building which Matt’s late grandfather, orthodontist George S. Payne, helped raise $2 million to build. During the past school year, the project provided more than $10,000 worth of dental care to 26 patients.

As a volunteer at the community free clinic, Payne checked in 25 patients for each session at 6 p.m. and handled the paperwork. He was impressed by the volunteer caregivers, who often worked past the 9 p.m. closing time to see every patient.

Donna Waldman, the clinic’s executive director, described Payne as a “fabulous person,” a smart self-starter with “a lot of sensitivity.”

“I can’t say enough good things about him,” she said.

The free clinic, operated for years in Rohnert Park, will reopen soon in a new, larger location at 50 Montgomery Drive next to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

Payne, who shot from 5-foot-10 to 6-foot-2 the summer before his sophomore year at Newman, said the added height and wingspan enhanced his career as a soccer goalie and singles tennis player. Reaching high to hit serves, Payne said he could come straight down on the ball and “drive it with power.”

He’s also an expert skier, the result of family trips to Tahoe slopes since he was 5, and now at home on the black diamond runs at Squaw Valley, Alpine Meadows and other mountains. “I’m competitive,” Payne said. “I love to get out there and have fun.”

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.