Supply Chain Hall of Fame Awards Now a Reality
I’ve talked about the “Supply Chain Hall of Fame” Awards before in this blog, but now they are a reality. The first honorees were presented their awards on October 21st at the Renaissance Chicago O’Hare Suites Hotel. As you may remember, this award was given the first time by the Bellwether League to supply chain leaders, futurist and educators of the past and present who have made their mark on our industry.
Supply Chain Hall of Fame Honorees
The honorees were the late Dean S. Ammer, Ph.D., Lee C. Boergadine, Gene D. Burton, Charles E. Housley, Thomas W. Kelly, William J. McFaul, Tom Pirelli, Donald J. Siegle and Alex J. Vallas. All of the honorees weren’t present to receive their award, but here are some of the comments from the ones that did attend from a news release provided by the Bellwether League.
Lee C. Boergadine reflected on his career “from Peoria to here,” as characterized by (Jamie) Kowalski. He called his induction into Bellwether League “one of the most exciting and humbling evenings of my life, second only to the evening my wife Marty said ‘I do.’”
Boergadine then traced his professional and personal development as influenced by five of his fellow inductees. “There’s no more eloquent way to demonstrate what it is to be a bellwether than to be a young man in Central Illinois and have personal contact with my fellow honorees,” he concluded. “Thank you all for the part you played in my life.”
Kowalski recalled meeting with Burton for advice and how Burton gave him four-to-five hours of his time as a demonstration of Burton’s commitment to the profession. The retired Burton expressed appreciation for being able to see people he hasn’t seen in years, thanked Bellwether League and his former employers and employees during his career, and capped his brief comments by thanking his wife of 63 years who was seated in the audience, next to Suzan Logan, who leads his consulting firm Gene Burton & Associates Inc.
(Thomas) Kelly called it a “thrill” to receive Bellwether League’s award and a “capstone” to his career. “When I was a young buck getting started at GE, [a manager] told me there were four things you need for success: A good education (Kelly highlighted his Jesuit school in New York), work hard (he told audience members to ask his wife Mary in attendance about the dinners and parent-teacher conferences he missed), mentors (he cited two, his boss at Massachusetts General Hospital Randy McDonald and Bellwether League Board Member Tom Hughes) and you have to be lucky.”
As you can see, it was an emotional time for these awardees who started their supply chain careers just like all of us just wanting to make a difference. Well, these individuals sure did make a difference in how we in the healthcare supply chain management see our jobs today. Not as buyers, but as supply chain executives who manage multi-million dollar supply chain businesses that can make a big difference in our healthcare organization’s bottom line. Congratulation to these supply chain heroes for their contribution to our discipline.
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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