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Pam Droog Jones and Bill Beggs Jr.
Recruitment of top talent to
St. Louis is on a roll. From education to medicine, aviation to finance—and music to sports—six top-notch professionals recently have assumed important positions with major St. Louis-area organizations.
Creg Williams came from Philadelphia with a vision to reform the city’s schools in his new job as Superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools. A new man at the “hot corner” for the Redbirds the last several seasons is another fellow who chose St. Louis over Philly: Scott Rolen.
Kevin Dolliole brings outstanding leadership of San Antonio’s airport to his position as the new Director of Airports for the City of St. Louis. Andrew Ziskind, M.D., offers top tier experience as a clinician and an administrator, most recently in Seattle, as the new president of Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
W. Roy Dunbar left Eli Lilly in Indianapolis to oversee processing and technology for MasterCard International as its new President, Global Technology and Oper-ations. David Robertson has traveled across the pond from Lyon, France, as one of the most sought-after conductors in the world to take up the baton as conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.
"I am a visionary."
The St. Louis School Board unanimously selected Dr. Creg Williams to take over the district’s leadership as its 34th superintendent. He started in the position in April.
Born and raised in Chicago, Williams attended Chicago Vocational High School where he took a course in fashion design and ended up working in that industry for several years. But eventually, he says, “I fell in love with the notion of teaching children what I had learned.”
From teaching, Williams moved up to principal, then he was named Director for Vocational Technical Education and Chief Officer of Education to Careers for Chicago Public Schools. He was Deputy Chief Academic Officer for Philadelphia Schools prior to being hired in St. Louis. He holds a B.A. from National Louis University, and an M.A. and Ed.D. from Roosevelt University.
Williams believes the School Board chose him because “I felt strongly they wanted someone who had a vision for an entire district,” he says. “When I started to talk about some of the reform ideas I had experienced in my career, it seemed to mesh.” In terms of reform ideas, it helps that Williams was promoted through the ranks in Chicago
and Philadelphia by Paul Vallas, CEO of Philadelphia School District, who is legendary for his school reform in both cities.
Why did he want to come to a district facing notable academic and financial issues? Williams explains, “I had been working in school reform the last eight years, so I was ready for the challenge of being the superintendent and helping a school district, a board of education and a community turn its schools around.”
Short-term, Williams intends to boost test scores through targeted instruction, restructure the district’s budget and finances, and bring accountability to the district. Over the longer term, Williams wants to create a stable five-year financial plan that’s upgraded every year. “Academically, I want to develop a broader plan for how we as citizens in
St. Louis want education to look like over the next 10 or 15 years,” he says, including how many and what types of schools will be needed and how they will be financed. “I want a plan that citizens can get involved in and that gets them excited about education for their city.”
Williams expects all St. Louisans to be stakeholders in education reform, “especially with the amount of growth that’s going on in the city,” he says. “When people move in to all those new houses that are being built, they want to know if there’s a quality school for their children to attend. They want to know there will be a future for their children. So I understand the significance of quality education as it relates to growth and economic development.”
Although Williams has visited St. Louis numerous times in the past, he says he’s still learning his way around, which isn’t easy while he’s working 65-70 hours a week. “There are a lot of schools to visit, events to attend and people to meet,” he says. But he understands reforming the city’s schools is going to be a massive effort. “I am a visionary so I like to look to the future and right now I’m busy shaping the future of education for the young people of St. Louis,” he says. “I think people will be pleased with what they’ll see next year and in years to come as it relates to reforming education in the city.”
"I got a standing ovation every time I came to the plate. It took me a while to get a hit here."
May 10 was quite a baseball game for Scott Rolen, the power-hitting third baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals. He smacked a 412-foot home run against the Dodgers, the third-longest blast for the ‘birds at Busch this year.
Trying to run out a ground ball, he also ran smack into the Dodgers’ first baseman, injuring his shoulder and landing him on the disabled list.
Following arthroscopic surgery, the prognosis looked bright for Rolen, 30, to be back in the lineup by midsummer.
In a chat during a recent home stand, when the Cards took a series from the Pirates at Busch, Rolen said the shoulder was feeling a lot better, but wasn’t about to venture a guess when he’d be cleared to play again.
If the 6-foot-4, 240-pound Indiana boy wasn’t yet ready to go, it was obvious his faithful were rarin’ to: dozens upon dozens of fans, boys and girls, men and women, were wearing Cardinals jerseys bearing their favorite star’s Number 27. In fact, there were practically as many Rolens in the stands as there were Pujols, Edmonds and ex-Cardinals such as Renteria put together.
Quite a testament to a fellow Philly traded two-thirds of the way into the 2002 season... and who didn’t give the people what they wanted, at first.
“I got a standing ovation every time I came to the plate,” Rolen recalled, adding, with a grin, “It took me a while to get a hit here.”
St. Louis fans have “exceeded everything everybody was saying.”
Rolen was key to the Cardinals’ amazing 2004 season, batting over .300 for the first time in his career and winning his sixth Gold Glove. ESPN notes that, until leg problems sidelined him for much of September, Rolen was a serious contender for the National League’s MVP. He ranked third in the league in batting with runners in scoring position.
But 2004 wasn’t over till it was over, as another St. Louisan would say about a World Series that many would just as soon forget. A fairytale finish for the Boston Red Sox included sweeping the Redbirds and all but shutting down Rolen at the plate.
Of course, the Cards wouldn’t have made it to the Fall Classic at all had not Number 27 smacked the clutch homer that won the seventh game against those pesky Houston Astros.
Where to from here for Scott Bruce Rolen, already an All-Star fixture at his position, and contracted to wear a Redbirds uniform through the decade?
Back to Indiana, for at least part of the time: In the Bloomington area, Rolen has established Camp Emma Lou, with horses and a lake... a healing place for many sick children and their families. Visit www.enisfurley.com (much of which, at this writing, was under construction) to find out more about Scott Rolen’s labor of love.
"I like constant challenge and to continually learn."
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Kevin Dolliole started his new job as Director of Lambert - St. Louis International Airport (officially, Director of Airports, City of St. Louis) in early May.
His 28-year aviation career began while he attended Xavier University in New Orleans, where he was born. He worked for Eastern Airlines. “I did everything, ticketing, baggage service, air cargo and departure services,” he says. At first he considered it “a nice part-time job.” But after two years, aviation was “in my blood,” he confesses. “It’s the excitement of the industry, how dynamic it is. I like the constant challenge and to continually learn.”
After college Dolliole transferred to Eastern’s Atlanta operation, where he remained for 11 years. Around the time Eastern was going out of business, an opportunity opened up in New Orleans. “That got me over to the airport operating side,” he says. At New Orleans, Dolliole served as Deputy Director, Assistant Director and Acting Director during his 10-year stay. He also earned an M.B.A. at New Orleans University.
When San Antonio was recruiting for an Aviation Director, Dolliole says, “I didn’t know an awful lot about it. I had heard of the Alamo.” He didn’t expect to fall in love with that city. “It’s a great city with excellent schools, quality of life and a very good airport and staff,” he says. Under Dolliole’s leadership, the number of flights and passenger boardings at the airport steadily rose and concession revenue increased 50 percent. He attended neighborhood meetings and responded to airport citizen advisory groups who requested that the airport feature local art, offer moderately priced restaurants and stores with attractive merchandise and more parking, among other improvements. In 2004, the San Antonio Airport and the Calgary Airport tied for first place for the prestigious J.D. Power & Associates Global Airport Award.
“I had a very good run in San Antonio, a tremendous five and a half years,” Dolliole says. “But the time came to move to a larger operation.” He says St. Louis is an airport he’s long had an interest in. “I knew this to be a very good operation,” he says. “But there are some challenges here. The industry has suffered as a result of problems on the airlines side. But the airport is a size where I can settle in, get my hands around it and have a long-term relationship.”
At Lambert, Dolliole intends to do a lot of what he did at San Antonio—walking around. “Not as a watchdog, but to observe and develop ideas,” he says. Naturally one goal is to get W1W [airport expansion] completed, “but that’s being very well handled and it’s on schedule and on budget to open in June 2006,” he says.
In addition, “In the short term, we will identify some things we can reasonably do with a modest budget that will have a real impact on the customer experience in the airport,” he says. That includes concessions, amenities, check-in procedures and more.
In the long run, Dolliole says he does not expect Lambert-International to grow into a mega hub for any one carrier. “But there is a good mix of traffic here and possibly down the road some carriers may decide to flow traffic over here,” he says. “We will very strategically attempt to attract more air service into the airport. I’m sure we will see some slow, steady growth and activity through here to the degree that it drives the economy.”
"I always knew medicine was important to me."
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In early May, Andrew Ziskind, M.D., took over as President of Barnes-Jewish Hospital, a 1,390-bed nonprofit academic hospital that’s largest hospital in Missouri and consistently ranks among U.S. News & World Report’s Honor Roll of America’s best hospitals.
The son of a pediatrician, Ziskind recalls his father seeing patients in the basement of the family’s suburban Boston home. His mother ran the office. “Although I ended up being a different kind of doctor, I always knew medicine was important to me,” he says.
Ziskind earned a B.S. from Bowdoin College and a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine and his clinical and research fellowship training in cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He also holds a master’s degree in business administration from Loyola College of Maryland. Ziskind is widely published and is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, American College of Physicians, American Heart Association Council on Clinical Cardiology and other professional organizations.
Ziskind’s specialty is interventional cardiology. “What attracted me to that was the fact that heart problems are extremely interesting from a physiological perspective,” he says. “Also, it’s an area where you can identify a problem, fix it and the patient is better nearly immediately. I like being able to really help people in a decisive fashion.”
Prior to coming to St. Louis, Ziskind served as Associate Vice President for Clinical Programs and Vice Dean for Clinical Affairs for the University of Washington in Seattle. He coordinated clinical services across UW Medicine, an academic health system that includes multiple specialties and hospitals. Before that he held various leadership positions with the University of Maryland.
“I believe what I bring to the table is the perspective of having been a very busy clinician and a successful administrator in an academic environment,” Ziskind says. “The same way Barnes-Jewish and Washington University attracts top physicians and academics attracted me in an administrative role.”
Ziskind says he has no plans to “go in and fix a lot of things. The organization is fundamentally an extremely healthy, vibrant, thriving academic hospital.” He intends to focus on “continuing to enhance a culture of service excellence and accessibility,” he says. “We also want to enhance the partnership between the School of Medicine and the hospital to achieve our mission of patient care, teaching and research.”
To sum it up, he says, “We want Barnes-Jewish Hospital to be the kind of place where people want to go for heath care, where nurses want to work and physicians want to practice. It’s a complex organization,” he adds, “and it takes a lot of work to maintain excellence.”
Ziskind says the first time he ever was in St. Louis was when he came in for his interview—and it was snowing. “But despite that it was a great visit,” he says, “and I was
very impressed with the leadership of BJC HealthCare and with the department chairs at Washington University.”
Ziskind realizes as the largest employer in the region, BJC and its affiliates, including Barnes-Jewish Hospital, has a large and direct impact on the regional economy. “But,” he notes, “we also have to remember by taking good care of patients, we have an even broader impact on the economy in terms of health care costs and getting people back to work and with their families.”
"I believe business holds great promise to make life better for people,"
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W. Roy Dunbar joined MasterCard International last September as President, Global Technology and Operations. The unit oversees a global network that processes $1 trillion annually, and authorizes up to 40 million card transactions and settles as much as $10 billion a day.
Born in Jamaica, Dunbar was raised in the United Kingdom and has lived in the United States for 15 years. He received a degree in pharmacy and an M.B.A. from Manchester University in the United Kingdom. He’s a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and a board member of the Executive Leadership Council Foundation, an organization that supports the development of African-American corporate leaders.
“I began my professional life as a pharmacist, but an M.B.A. led me to corporate management,” Dunbar says. He came to believe that “business holds great promise to make life better for people,” he says, “and I’ve sought out roles in industries and companies that positively impact people.”
Those companies most recently included Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Company where he had a 14-year career. As Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, Dunbar managed a staff of more than 2,700 technology professionals and helped transform the pharmaceutical giant’s use of information technology to shorten the time between developing a product
and bringing it to market. Before joining MasterCard, he had been Eli Lilly’s President of Intercontinental Operations, responsible for sales and operations in Africa, the Middle East, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2003, Information Week named Dunbar Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Year.
Dunbar believes “MasterCard knows the importance of technology to driving business value and that fits my background and interests,” he says. As a result, he adds, “I was attracted to the opportunity to lead a very strong team that works on technology that impacts the entire world. The technology we manage in St. Louis makes the MasterCard brand promise real in 210 countries and for over 650 million cards that carry our logos.” His primary goal is to “help our customer financial institutions gain greater competitive edge using our technologies,” he says.
The world’s largest MasterCard office is its St. Louis-area site, which Dunbar feels is “an excellent location. It is a family-oriented region that has a highly talented and diverse workforce,” he notes. “That makes it relatively easy for us to attract and retain the best and brightest. Our strong payroll has a positive impact on the area.”
Dunbar adds the company “made a significant investment in this area when we built our global technology campus here, and we expect our impact to continue to be positive,” he says. “We will continue to share our intellectual, technological and financial capital with the region.”
"The orchestra can be a constant
living metaphor of just what
excellence people can achieve
when they work together."
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David Robertson, new music director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, already had a warm spot in his heart for Powell Symphony Hall. Robertson had first raised his baton here in January 1999, as guest conductor, the same time that Orli Shaham made her debut as concert pianist.
Today they are husband and wife.
Another fateful evening with the orchestra was in New York on Feb. 8, 2002, a tour performance at Carnegie Hall, when Robertson stepped up on short notice for famed SLSO conductor Hans Vonk, who was ailing.
Robertson wasn’t completely cold: In 1999, he’d spent five days with the SLSO—three performances and two rehearsals. However, there was only time for one three-hour rehearsal on the day of the concert. Normally this wouldn’t have been nearly enough, but Robertson was amazed by the chemistry that remained between him and the musicians.
“In coming back it seemed like it had maybe been a couple of months since I had seen them,” he said. By the way, the challenge included last-minute program changes to feature works that neither Robertson nor the orchestra had performed for some time.
Certainly entitled to feeling butterflies, Robertson said any nervousness wore off after the first few stanzas. “There was this type of communication,” he said. “It felt like we’d been doing this so often that it was practically a routine that everybody understood.”
Something quite magical must have happened that night, for The New York Times review lavished praise, to wit: “This gifted and technically assured American conductor achieved brilliant results.”
In the three and a half years since then, the stars must have aligned to ensure that Robertson take the place of Vonk. Maestro Vonk died in August 2004. The highbrow smart money was on Robertson settling in New York, Chicago... anywhere but here—so noted in a Sunday New York Times cover story on Robertson.
Robertson, however, considers St. Louis “the most romantic place on the planet,” quite a compliment from a globetrotter who last pulled up stakes as music director of the orchestra in Lyon, France. Another allure of our area is kind of like that “Jeep thing”—some cities just don’t understand sports like we do, and these two serious musicians also happen to be pretty serious sports fans. Robertson grew up in Southern California and has followed the Rams since their Los Angeles days. He also loves baseball, but his wife, Jerusalem-born and a New Yorker since age seven, “can give you complete baseball stats.”
Not surprisingly, one of Robertson’s main goals is to make everybody in St. Louis a fan of their orchestra, which “truly is world class,” he has declared.
“I want everyone in the community to realize that this orchestra is for them. The orchestra can be a constant living metaphor of just what excellence people can achieve when they work together.” |
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