What Matters?

I have been extremely fortunate in my career to work with committed people on things that make a difference.  After graduating from Dartmouth College I began work as a high school teacher, teaching, coaching and mentoring alongside a group of devoted human beings whose calling was to prepare young people for rewarding lives that would improve the world in which they were growing up.  Many of those people continue to teach today, or have retired as teachers, changing thousands of lives along the way.

Following in my parents footsteps, and motivated by my teaching experience, I decided to pursue a career in higher education, enrolling at the University of Wisconsin and ultimately earning an MA and Ph.D. in History.  But after finishing my dissertation, instead of spreading my wings as an academic I became enthralled by going into business so followed my wife Katie's lead and earned an MBA at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.  It changed my outlook on the world, and my preparation for it, while building on how I had learned to think and express myself as an historian.

Wonderful professional experiences followed as I joined the high tech world with a series of fast-growing software companies.  The exploding niche of health information systems became my focus, including co-founding an early venture-backed electronic health records (EHR) company in the mid-1990s.  I saw the impact technology could have on changing people's lives for the better and dedicated the next decade to finding new ways to do that, in senior management roles that included strategy, marketing, finance, business development and mergers and acquisitions.  But everything I did and learned was because of the committed people I was fortunate to work with.

In 2008 I joined the Tavistock Group to lead strategy and innovation for the nascent Lake Nona Medical City in Orlando.  It became a true passion, driving collaboration among a remarkable range of academic, research, clinical, corporate and government organizations to create something impactful and enduring.  $3 billion in capital investments and thousands of new jobs later, a strong platform is in place for decades of growth that is transforming the region and has the potential to change the world.

But what I learned most from my experience was that there is no greater gift than working with people who share a commitment to doing meaningful things that make a difference.  Big ideas inspire us.  Making those ideas reality is what changes lives.  And working alongside passionate, dedicated people is what life is all about.

The fun for me now is in applying those life lessons in new and interesting ways, both personally and professionally.  I look forward to writing the next few chapters.