Bellwether Class of 2011

Laurence A. Dickson, (1945-2018)

Larry Dickson knows a thing or two about buying and selling products in healthcare. After a decade of selling products for McGaw Laboratories in the 1970s to hospitals and other healthcare facilities and working with group purchasing organizations (GPOs) from the sales side, Dickson joined Providence Health System where he worked to unify the procurement and logistics operations for 15 hospitals on the West Coast by establishing clinical resource groups that linked doctors and nurses with purchasing and distribution decision makers, establish internal regional warehousing and distribution capabilities as well as committed contracting and a forward-thinking recycling/waste program.

Daniel J. Dryan

Dan Dryan never used retirement as an excuse not to contribute to and participate in supply chain operations development and progress. During his 46-year career he developed shared-service warehousing and multi-hospital materials management information systems, set up supply chain operations for off-site nonacute care facilities; he was an early adopter of bar coding and hand-held devices and an early advocate of supply chain becoming involved in the construction process. Dryan also holds the notable claim of being the first hospital in the nation to implement completely the Friesen concepts for hospital management. Gordon A. Friesen was inducted into the Bellwether Class of 2009.

Derwood B. Dunbar Jr.

From his childhood working in his father’s pharmacy to his high school summers as a teenager in hospital purchasing to his leadership of one of the nation’s largest GPOs, Derwood Dunbar has radiated supply chain management throughout his professional life. Dunbar spent roughly the first half of his supply chain career in materials management for seven hospitals in the Chicago area. During the second half he developed shared services operations for a regional group in Western Pennsylvania and then established a group of GPOs, Mid-Atlantic Group Network of Shared Services (MAGNET). Dunbar also was instrumental in launching a professional association for GPOs and the Health Industry Group Purchasing Association (HIGPA), where he served as the first president.

Steven P. Gray

Steve Gray specialized in applying business and clinical process redesign in hospitals to improve quality, reduce costs and implement new technology, using industrial engineering methods for hospital-based material re-processing and movement processes for operational efficiency and facility planning. He developed the first engineered formulas for determining space and staffing requirements to replace experiential and “rules of thumb” decision-making. As a senior leader of Chi Systems, Gray was a pioneering consultant with hundreds of hospitals and succeeded Dean Ammer, Ph.D., (Bellwether Class of 2008) in managing the industry publication Hospital Materials Management. Gray has been a prolific author of educational articles and textbooks, as well as a college lecturer on industrial engineering and supply chain topics.

Betty Hanna, (1929-2019)

Since 1958 Betty Hanna has been – and continues to be – the professional development engine behind “central services,” widely known as the sterile processing and inventory management components of supply chain management. In her executive director role she helped promote CS/SPD as an integral hospital department critical to clinical care. Starting with chapters in New York and Chicago totaling 64 total members, Hanna helped grow the International Association of Healthcare Central Service Materiel Management to more than 14,000 professional members with chapters in 32 states. During the last five decades, IAHCSMM helped establish and implement professional guidelines, rules and standards where there were none.

Lillian R. Larry Malcolmson

Until Larry Malcolmson came along, capital equipment acquisition in healthcare organizations was unprofessionally organized and executed, grossly inefficient and altogether needlessly costly. Malcolmson recognized that healthcare professionals needed an objective third-party information source when making equipment and device purchases to counter the “buy-whatever-you-want” philosophy prevalent in healthcare prior to managed care-based reimbursement. He founded MD Buyline to provide healthcare organizations with pricing assessments and acquisition process consulting and services for clinicians and administrators alike. To this day, his company continues to be regarded as the “gold standard,” a must-have source for the industry for equipment selection and acquisition decision support.

John W. Strong

John Strong is a seasoned healthcare operations innovator who has been actively involved in virtually every aspect of supply chain management as a hospital director, consultant, GPO executive, educator and supplier advocate. Through his diverse career Strong has helped raise the level and visibility of the supply chain as a clinical and C-Suite concern. He spent more than a decade with three hospitals and launched a shared-services supply chain company. Strong then joined GPO Premier as vice president of materials management, culminating as COO of its Purchasing Partners unit. He then spent a year in consulting before serving for the next decade as founding president and CEO of Consorta, the leading Catholic-sponsored GPO. He also served as president and CEO of World Product Centre Marketing, a proposed 60-story building in Manhattan for healthcare training, testing, education and supplier showcasing. Strong recently retired as a senior executive from Greater New York Hospital Association, one of the WPCM’s founders.