ARCS Light Award Recipients

2018 - 2019 San Diego ARCS Light Recipient:

Biography

Peggy Hanley, our 2018-19 ARCS Light, has been an outstanding and invaluable member of ARCS since 2009. She has served in numerous positions on the Board including VP of Strategic Planning for 3 years, where she used good management skills and insight to help move the Chapter into the future. She has facilitated two Board retreats and is currently on the Membership Committee.

She was born in upstate New York, educated in Preparatory schools in New York City and graduated from Hunter College, City University of New York with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Her specialty in psychiatric nursing led her to train in New York’s Bellevue Hospital, one of the world largest hospitals. After graduation, she worked for the Department of Health near Washington DC as a public health nurse for the inner-city population.

When Peggy moved to San Diego, she worked as a nurse at the UCSD Department of Psychiatry.  It was here she met her future husband, Hamp Atkinson, a Doctor of Psychiatry. 

As a young mother, she earned a Masters degree in social work from SDSU, then practiced as a psychotherapist and psychiatric social worker at Kaiser-Permanente and at UCSD. Later she earned a Masters degree in Business Administration at SDSU and began working as a consultant for large healthcare, government, and business organizations. She was a Unit Vice President for Sharp Healthcare and co-founded the Centre for Organization Effectiveness, working as a leadership consultant with for-profit medical enterprises.

Her upbringing in New York City has left her with high energy. She is always busy, squeezing one event tightly against another. She has served as a volunteer on the Board of the San Diego Youth Symphony and the Catholic Church Mental Health Ministry, in addition to ARCS.

In her free time, she enjoys going to Montana to ski and hike up to 20 miles a day, touring and fly-fishing. She also keeps fit running, swimming, and lifting weights on a daily basis. Peggy and Hamp are proud parents of their two married children and their six adorable grandchildren.

Peggy has been a “Light” among us and is the perfect example of what the ARCS Light personifies.