Summer 2016

FOR RODNEY HUEBBERS ’77, M.B.A., R.Ph., THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF LEADERS. “There is the kind you go through the fires of hell for, and those you’d think twice about calling 9-1-1 for.”

In his keynote address at URI College of Pharmacy Office of Continuing Professional Development 31^st Annual Seminar by the Sea this spring, the Chief Operating Officer of Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) Medicine and Science drew from his 30-year career in healthcare to share the leadership philosophy he has been honing since his high school days, when baseball coach Ted Stebbins ’62 taught him a life lesson: “When everyone pulls together, you go from being a group of talented individuals to being a team.”

Since then, he has served as President and CEO of University Health System in Shreveport, Louisiana; President and COO of Tenet Health System’s Detroit Medical Center; and COO of Vanguard Health System in San Antonio, Texas. In his current role at CTCA, he still values the team above all: “There is such passion in this organization toward finding a cure for cancer,” he says. “Every day, you feel like you are part of something greater.”

Pictured above: Mission work is a passion for Huebbers. He first began traveling to the island with Community Coalition for Haiti following the devastating 2008 hurricanes and was there extensively after the 2010 earthquake.