This interview with Susan Salka, chief executive of AMN Healthcare, a staffing company based in San Diego, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. What were some early influences for you?

A. I grew up primarily in Nebraska, in a little town of 100 people. I say primarily, because my dad was in the Navy before that, and we moved all around. That definitely influenced me, in terms of just having to embrace change and be adaptable.

It really causes you to be open to new ideas and new people. You were always walking into new places where you didn’t know anybody, so you had to learn to make friends quickly.

You also knew you weren’t going to be there for very long, and so you had to be O.K. with that. In fact, you need to embrace it, because there’s nothing you can do about it.

Any leadership roles for you early on?

There were 12 kids in my high school graduating class, so I’m not sure what kind of leadership opportunities there were back then. But I started working when I was 12 years old, washing dishes at the Hungry Horse Saloon. I would do anything just to keep busy. I became the assistant cook, then the cook, then the hostess and the server, and some nights it was so dead I would be all of those things combined.

I ended up working in the neighboring town at Jigg’s Bar, which had a restaurant. I got a little tired of offering up the same dishes, so I decided to offer “specialty nights,” with Mexican or Italian food. I was about 15. They ended up being a big hit. I’ve always liked to figure out what people want and find a way to deliver it.

Any favorite expressions that your parents would repeat often around the dinner table?

My dad has 10,000 expressions. When he would say these things as I was growing up, I would roll my eyes every time, but I find myself using many of those same expressions today.

One of them has to do with keeping things simple and making people feel comfortable around you. If somebody was talking over his head, using big words, being too complex, or trying to act too sophisticated, he would say, “Would you break that down to cows, chickens and taters?”