Q & A
APractice of
Promoting Health
Montclair’ s Dr. RichardBesser brings a lifetime of expertise to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
WRITTEN BY CINDYSCHWEICH HANDLER
In his last job as chief health and medical editor at ABC News, Montclair’ s Dr. Richard Besser broke stories that guided viewers inmaking better decisions about their health.
Now that heisthe recently named president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, he oversees an organization that helps produce the kinds of headlines he used toreport. We spoke with him about what it’ s like to make the news instead of broadcasting it, and asked for his thoughts on how grants from RWJF’ s $ 10.5 billion endowment should be put to use.
Dr. RichardBesser
On the ABC Nightly News, you reached upwards of 12 million people. What attracted you to working atafoundation? My whole career has been focused on public health for people around the world, and I’ ve come to realize over time that there are many ways to have animpact onpeople’ s lives. Ispent time as aresearcher at a university, was at the CDC [ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ] for 13years, and at ABC for almost eight, trying topractice public health on-air. Now I’ m taking the skills I gained and looking to see another way of trying to improve health. I want to bring the intensity of my background to amore thoughtful, longer range approach. This is my first job in more than 20 years that isn’ t really crisis-driven. And I’ ve always loved jobs with steep learning curves.
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COPYRIGHT 2017 FLYNN LARSEN. COURTESY OFTHE ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION
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