The Catalyst Issue 20 | December 2014 | Page 26

LEADERSHIP to help shape healthcare delivery that meets families’ needs Meet the new CEO of the Hill Country region ric Looper has again found firm footing in his native Texas. As the new president of the Hill Country region of Baylor Scott & White, he returns to the Southwest after a decade-long absence that included chief executive officer roles at St. Joseph Health System in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and at Henryetta Medical Center near Tulsa, Oklahoma. It took a little nudging, and a little luck, to bring him back. Soon after a planned family vacation in Central Texas last year that coincided with a meeting with Pat Currie, president and chief operating officer, Baylor Scott & White Health - Central Texas, the opportunity came up to lead the Baylor Scott & White Hill Country region. In July of this year, Mr. Looper took the helm of a medical center campus that is an impressive healthcare resource for E 26 THE CATALYST December 14 | sw.org the community and a vital economic force in Marble Falls. It includes a busy specialty clinic, and a soon-to-becompleted 46-bed hospital, scheduled to open in 2015. “My wife, Sarah, and I gave ourselves 10 years away before we’d return home, so the timing was perfect,” says Mr. Looper, a native of Austin, who also lived in Victoria for nine years during his childhood. The Loopers are both graduates of the University of Texas at Austin. They knew they would eventually resettle in Texas, to ensure that their children, Rachel, now seven years old, and Zachary, now three, would grow up near family in the Hill Country and San Antonio.