Painters Make a Difference at HSS One Stroke at a Time If asked to give a single word describing why Hospital for Special Surgery has a worldclass reputation for accomplishment, “physicians,” “nurses,” or “research” immediately come to mind. But, “painters”?
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The term might not even crack the top five hundred. Still, Luis Cruz and Jorge Murillo, painters with Environmental Services, continue to do what they love and continue to make a difference the best way they know how.
HSS painters Luis Cruz and Jorge Murillo.
“We really love our job,” says Cruz. “When you love your job, when you have good partners, when you have respect, you can do anything.” The men first met Feb. 3, 1991, when they started off their painting careers at HSS with a firm handshake, working on a two-bedroom apartment in need of a fresh coat of paint on the 10th floor of the Belaire building.
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What neither expected at the time was that the morning spent working in that apartment would be the beginning of a nearly 20-year friendship. “We never fight,” says Cruz. “From the first day we met, we’ve had nothing but respect for one another.”
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This respect and this friendship have carried the pair through a wide array of experiences at HSS that have allowed them to make a difference – not only in the lives of each other, but in the lives of many hospital patients and staff. The pair note October 11, 2006, as among the most memorable of these occasions, not because of what their friendship brought to the job, but because of what it brought to their co-workers and guests at the Belaire. As the men were working on the 12th floor, a small plane accidentally crashed into the 39th and 40th floors, causing a four-alarm fire. (Continued on next page)