Supply Chain Hall of Fame Honors Nine Superstars
By Robert T. Yokl
This is a first in healthcare where nine superstars are honored by the Bellwether League www.bellwetherleague.org for their groundbreaking work in professionalizing the healthcare supply chain management discipline: Dean Ammer, Lee Boergadine, Gene Burton, Charles Housley, Thomas Kelly, William McFaul, Tome Pirellie, Donald Siegle and Alex Vallas.
I have had the good fortune to be able to follow the careers of most of these honorees and to apply their enlightened philosophies, teachings and models in my own supply chain work. From my prospective, all of these individuals are or were important trailblazers when our industry desperately needed the leadership over the last 30-years.
One honoree in particular I would like to talk about is Charles Housley, since I do know him personally, once contributed a chapter to one of his books, have had him conduct a seminar for my supply chain staff in the 80s and have talked to him as recently as last year. Chuck has had a profound influence on my thinking about our profession when I was a young material manager. His teachings started me thinking about systematizing what I was doing as opposed to grappling with the same old problems over and over again. Chuck gave me and my colleagues the big picture of what materials management was all about when everyone was trying to understand it. He gave us the “how to’s” on just-in-time inventories, stockless distribution, exchange carts, and product formularies strategies that worked in the real world of materials management. I am happy that I have had the opportunity to thank Chuck personally for his contribution to my own career. I’m elated that Chuck is now being nationally recognized by the Bellwether League for the pioneering influence he has had on the growth of our discipline.
That’s not to say that the other nine honorees don’t warrant this adulation, it’s just that I have had an up close and personal relationship with one of the honorees that gives me an insiders perspective of why I support the Bellwether Leagues efforts to honor these nine unsung hero’s of healthcare.
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I too had spoken at length with Mr. Housley when we were working out the details of re-selling his book Product Standardization and Evaluation. He was very interested in who the Latest Leaders were in the industry very much like the leaders above.
Chuck also joked about Dean Ammer who he had shared the stage with a few times and made mention that he “Never bought a Healthcare Product In His Life.” (Dean was an academic) But Chuck stated that he liked what Dean Ammer did for healthcare and agreed with many of his principles. In a way I could tell that they may have been a bit of competing Healthcare Guru’s at the time.
Every time I see a Chuck Housley (Controling Hospital Supply Inventories, Product Standardization and Evaluation or the old Materials Management Quarterly guidebooks) or Dean Ammer (Materials Management and Purchasing is my favorite) book on Amazon or Ebay, I snatch it up they may be dated but there is really some great gems in those books.