Thirteen years after founding Innovations Health Systems (IHS) with his friend Dan Niccum, CEO and Placer County resident Ken McGuire has found happiness in giving back to the community he loves.
This discovery began with a passion for charity that has followed him through a career that has taken him from banking to health care to hospitality. McGuire recently opened his second Placer County restaurant, McGuire’s Sports Bar & Grill, following his purchase of Meadow Vista’s The Tin Lantern Bar & Grill in 2022.
“I’m a people person. I have always wanted to be in hospitality,” says McGuire, who moved to Auburn in 1996 and spent nearly two decades in the banking industry before shifting into health care. IHS operates Northern California pediatric hospitals.
“Restaurants are a challenge because you have to be committed to always improve,” says McGuire. “You can’t keep the menu the same. People want to see and taste new things.”
“Where I’m at in life is helping others.” — Ken McGuire, CEO, IHS
McGuire believes waiting until later in his career to operate restaurants paid off. “I can make decisions not motivated by profit but based on creating a great environment,” says McGuire.
Cultivating a team equally passionate about hospitality has been especially enjoyable. “It’s about lifting up others,” he says, “… and having them take ownership in what they do, while being able to make enough money to support their families doing something they love.”
McGuire was a longtime board member of Child Advocates of Placer County (CASA) and stepped in to save Eppie’s Great Race when it was on the verge of folding. Proceeds from the annual event, now known as the Great American Triathlon, benefit regional CASAs and the American River Parkway Foundation.
IHS recently began to support the nonprofit Community Against Sexual Harm (CASH). “I want to see the end of Sacramento and Stockton being two of the worst areas in the country for sexual trafficking,” says McGuire. “The world doesn’t become a better place by words alone. We all need to do whatever we can to make our community a better place.”
