Bellwether League, Inc.
Remembering those we lost recently and too quickly

By Rick Dana Barlow

When you operate an organization that bestows career and lifetime achievement recognition awards on worthy individuals, you typically fete individuals in their golden years or the twilight of their existence.

Professional and industry recognition is viewed as providing a capstone on one’s influential and valuable contributions – the proverbial trophy after winning the race of the working life.

With an organization like Bellwether League Foundation and its Hall of Fame for Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership, you expect to lose an innovator, leader, pioneer or visionary no more than every few years, every other year or even once a year.

Within a six-month timeframe straddling the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021, we lost six Bellwethers – half of them in the same month, January 2021.

Throughout this year in published, posted and broadcast media, Bellwether League Foundation and the Hall of Fame for Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership has saluted these six Bellwethers for their contributions, dedication, devotion and legacies. We continue here. Although you’ll find more details about each of them in the press releases posted on BellwetherLeague.org, we include some fun facts about them below that hopefully will raise eyebrows as if to indicate, “I didn’t know that!” … or even bring a smile to your face.

Br. Ned Gerber

Br. Ned Gerber

As a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) and a CGMA (Chartered Global Management Accountant), Gerber was a staunch advocate for and developer of industry benchmarks and data standards. As a hospital supply chain leader-turned-consultant, his devotion to clients was legendary, including making 11 p.m. Friday visits to clients to see how the 3rd shift in distribution was doing. Not surprisingly, Gerber, an Anglican brother of the Benedictine Order, was a devout man of faith who loved His Lord; he was a theologian but not trained at seminary. His Biblical “life verses” were 1 Corinthians 16:13-14: “Be on your guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be men of courage. Be strong. Do everything in love.” Gerber also admired the Old Testament leader Nehemiah who led God’s chosen people from exile to rebuild the temple and restore proper worship, praying to God to lead him through adversity, heartache and rebellion by the very people he was trying to help to honor God.

Paul Powell

Paul Powell

Before cementing his stellar reputation in Supply Chain with Humana Inc., Powell spent the bulk of the 1960s through the mid-1970s in purchasing for United Air Lines and InFlight Services, where he managed a plant that built film projectors and placed major films on airplanes. Video entertainment on flights today may be commonplace, but Powell was one of the pioneers who transported Hollywood to the friendly skies.

Tom Hughes

Tom Hughes

Hughes had wanted to see two key industry challenges solved during his lifetime. The first? Healthcare supply chain routinely using data standards. The second? That the C-suite would recognize supply chain as a strategic imperative. Both continue as works-in-progress, made all that much harder without one of its most influential champions to rally the industry. Hughes saw himself as an innovator who worked effectively with diverse client cultures. After all, to him, “culture beats strategy.” He also regularly encouraged young people entering the profession to get an MBA because it represented a “great door opener.” Then he advised them to learn all aspects of the supply chain because it’s a very small world and important to remain in touch with contacts. Such sage advice remains true today for persons of all ages and experience.

Henry Berling

Henry Berling

Berling may be renowned for his nearly four decades of work at Owens & Minor – the company from which he retired. He was known for being the architect who selected and negotiated the sale of a number of smaller firms to Owens & Minor over the years – and for good reason. That’s how he arrived at and was ushered into Owens & Minor. After graduating college, Berling went to work for his father’s firm, A & J Hospital Supply in Richmond, VA, where he learned the supply and distribution business from the ground up. A year later in 1966, Berling’s father chose to sell A & J to Owens, Minor & Bodeker Drug Co., and the rest, as they say, is history. If you were truly interested, he’d share it with you, along with his passion for cigars and his prized Cadillacs.

Ed Hardin

Ed Hardin

A family man to the core, Hardin and his wife Julie had known each other since they were 10 years old, and year-over-year had fallen more deeply in love with one another.

Yet, despite living in Wisconsin (he relocated from native Texas for work), Hardin always disliked cheese with a passion. A friend once suggested that he suffered from turophobia, an irrational or disproportionate fear of cheese. However, he was regarded as one of the best makers of grilled cheese sandwiches.

Jim Dickow

Jim Dickow

Dickow once worked as an engineer at McDonnell Douglas where he helped simulate astronaut linkups with the space station. He also is known for a series of “Dickowisms,” or witty sayings known to emanate from him somewhat effortlessly. Alphabetically, here are 10 of Dickow’s infamous bon mots:

Thanks for thinking of all six one more time.