WELCOA | Wellness Councils of America

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National Board of Directors

WELCOA is proud to have some of the best and brightest minds in business and health serving on its Board of Directors. Past Directors include Warren Buffett, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., Charles Berry, MD, former Chief Medical Officer for the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, General Jack T. Chain, Jr., former Commander in Chief of the Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Force Base, and Richard F. Schubert, former President of the American Red Cross. The collective experience of past and present Board members has been, and will continue to be, invaluable to the guidance and visionary leadership of the Wellness Council of America.

Current Board of Directors
Wellness Council of America

Stephen Michael LaCagnin (Chairman)
Administrative Manager, Jackson Kelly PLLC

Stephen Michael LaCagnin is the Administrative Manager and head of the litigation department of the Morgantown office of Jackson Kelly PLLC. For more than 20 years, LaCagnin has defended businesses and their management from "mom and pop shops" to the nationally known Fortune 500s in state and federal courts. While his defense work in recent years has focused primarily in the labor and employment arena LaCagnin continues to defend a diversity of clients and matters including personal injury, wrongful death, products liability, and aviation accidents.

Mr. LaCagnin has developed a rapport with juries in the North Central West Virginia area where he is heavily involved in community service. Over the last 5 years he has twice served as Campaign Chair and Board President of the United Way of Monongalia and Preston Counties, President of the Morgantown Rotary Club and spokesperson for the Tri-County Well Region Initiative. LaCagnin currently serves on the Morgantown Chamber of Commerce board, the board of the Wellness Council of West Virginia and local hospital and hospice boards, the West Virginia Public Theatre board and the Morgantown Rotary Club Foundation board.

Steven S. Martin (Vice Chairman)
CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska

Mr. Steven S. Martin is the Chief Executive Officer of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, provides health care coverage or benefit administration to more than 640,000-one in three-Nebraskans. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska is a not-for-profit mutual insurance company.

Mr. Martin is leading a movement within his own company as well as the State of Nebraska to integrate health promotion and prevention into the health care delivery mechanisms.

Al Herman (Treasurer)
Health Care Division Partner (ret.) Arthur Anderson

A former Partner in the Dallas Office of Arthur Anderson, Al Herman is a Certified Public Accountant in Texas. He is former Worldwide Director of Healthcare Industry Services, and is a Fellow of the Healthcare Financial Management Association. Herman co-chaired the Delphi Study Committee, which prepared the study The Future of Healthcare: Physician and Hospital Relationships. An active public speaker, he has spoken to numerous health care groups such as ACHE, Estes Park, HFMA, and the Healthcare Forum.

David Hunnicutt PhD
President, Wellness Council of America

Dr. Hunnicutt is the President of the Wellness Council of America. For the past ten years, He has been a nationally recognized advocate for improved health and wellness in corporate and community settings. Dr. Hunnicutt has worked and consulted with Fortune 500 companies, hospitals and health care systems, institutions of higher education, international health promotion organizations, and a variety of federal agencies. Over the course of the last five years, Dr. Hunnicutt has made several hundred keynote presentations to audiences such as the National Institutes for Health and the US Department of Health and Human Services. Widely published, Dr. Hunnicutt is most recently authoring a book entitled The Competitive Advantage of Healthy Companies.

William Kizer Sr. (Emeritus)
Chairman, Central States Indemnity

William Kizer Sr. currently serves as Chairman for Central States Indemnity in Omaha, Nebraska. Kizer founded the Wellness Council of America in 1987 and has provided WELCOA with visionary leadership over the past decade. He is the Director of the National Center for Health Education and former Director of Southern California Water Company. Kizer attended the University of Iowa and Creighton University and is the recipient of an honorary doctorate degree in Humanities from both Creighton University and the University of Nebraska. He is author of The Healthy Workplace: A Blueprint for Corporate Action.

Glendon Johnson (Emeritus)
Chairman, CEO (Retired) of John Alden Life Insurance Company

Glendon Johnson was appointed as Chairman of the Wellness Council of America by WELCOA's Board of Director's in 1995. Mr. Johnson's extensive, firsthand experience in the insurance industry, coupled with his personal commitment to worksite wellness have made him an exemplary figure in the arena of corporate wellness.

Mr. Johnson received his BS from the University of Utah and his LL.D from Harvard Law School. After graduating from Harvard Law in 1952, Mr. Johnson soon entered the insurance industry as Vice President and General Council of American Life Convention of Washington D.C. His extensive insurance experience includes posts at Great Southern Life Insurance Company where he was elected President at the age of 45. He also held posts at Securities Management Corporation, American National Insurance Company, as well as John Alden Life Insurance Company-where he retired as Chairman of the Board, President, CEO, and COO.

Mr. Johnson's commitment to personal well-being and his sense of social responsibility is demonstrated by his service on numerous civic boards and committees including the National Board of the Boy Scouts of America. Mr. Johnson also a member of the BYU Business Advisory Council, and the United Way Campaign Cabinet.

Mr. Johnson is also a contributor to a number of Law Review Journals, the Chartered Life Underwriters Journal, Association Monographs, Insurance Texts, and the Heubner Lecture Series.

Mark Ott, MD
Chairman, Department of Surgery, LDS Hospital

Dr. Ott is currently the Chairman in the Department of Surgery at LDS Hospital. Prior to this he was an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Mark J. Ott obtained a BA of Chemistry as well as his M.D. from the University of Utah.

Dr. Ott performed his Internship, Residency and Fellowship (research and clinical) at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Ott is board certified as a physician of General Surgery and Surgical Oncology. He continues to care for patients with complex Hepatobiliary, Pancreatic, Gastrointestinal, Endocrine, and Soft Tissue tumors.

Dr. Ott was named one of Boston's Best Doctors in Surgical Oncology in the Boston Magazine 2002. He has received many awards and honors throughout his career including: Young Clinician award from the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract. He has made regional, national and international contributions through invited and plenary presentations. He received the Anthony L. Imbembo 1996 Surgical Resident Teaching Award at Johns Hopkins Hospital General Surgery department. Dr. Ott has written multiple articles on various surgical/oncology related topics, as well as several reviews and chapters.

Richard Collins, MD
WELCOA Medical Director, South Denver Heart Center

Dr. Collins, also known as "The Cooking Cardiologist", is nationally recognized as an expert on obesity and weight management and is known for his devotion to creating culinary dishes using only ingredients known to promote good health. He is a Nebraska native, graduating from the University of Nebraska College of Medicine in 1968 and is a fellow in the American College of Chest Physicians and the American College of Cardiology. Dr. Collins maintains membership in several professional organizations and was instrumental in the formation of the Alegent Health Heart Institute. He served as their Medical Director from 1993 to 1997. Currently, he practices at the South Denver Heart Center in Littleton, CO. Dr. Collins has appeared nationally on Live with Regis and Kelly, and also on the Food Network. He is a firm believer in "looking on the light side" of life, and has conducted many programs on humor and how it can positively affect the heart.

David Gobble, PhD
Director, Fisher Institute for Wellness, Ball State University

Dr. Gobble received his PhD in Community Health and has worked in health promotion and wellness for over twenty-five years as an educator, administrator, direct service provider, and consultant. His career has focused on the delivery and evaluation of disease prevention, health promotion, and wellness programs in various work and community settings. Dr. Gobble has been published in leading journals in health education, nursing, psychology, and wellness.