Jason Hoeppner, Manager, Arnett Clinic, Lake Forest MBA Class of 1998
Jason Hoeppner didn't want to follow the trend of health care managers moving ahead by virtue of longevity on the job. He wanted to know what it took to be a true leader.
Hoeppner was a physical therapist at Jasper County Hospital in Indiana when he began the LFGSM program. That meant an hour and a half commute to the Chicago campus for classes. When he moved to Lafayette, Indiana, and a management position with Sports Plus in January 1998, that drive increased to more than two hours. The effort was well worth it for the June 1998 graduate, who plans to write a book on health care management by the year 2000.
Now manager of a staff of 22, Hoeppner says he was immediately able to apply what he was learning in his classes to his business situations, especially when he took 730 Marketing with Randy Voorn "I've used Randy's material in my office as well as with other managers I've worked with," he said. One of the largest undertakings Hoeppner has led - changing the name of his company from Sports Plus to Sports Plus Rehabilitation - was successful because of what he learned of management and marketing from Voorn and from other courses at LFGSM.
"People were calling in and asking if they could buy golf clubs. They really didn't know what we did," he noted, explaining that his studies gave him the tools he needed to initiate targeted surveys to identify the needs of the community and select a name more suited to the company's service offering. He's now spearheading the opening of a new clinic in Frankfort, IN, this year.
"The coursework in the MBA program has given me a very different perspective in looking at health care and what's going on in the industry," he said. He also credits instructors Holly Kerr (784 Business-to-Business Marketing), Tony Poidomani (750 Managerial Accounting), and Jim Vahle (865 Strategic Management) with giving him the essentials he needed for success in his particular business situation.
"Finding the happy medium between quality of care and profitability is extremely difficult in health care," Hoeppner said. "For instance, using a less expensive supply may not provide the quality of care necessary to treat the client. Health care providers are, and should be, concerned primarily with delivery of quality care while the managers need to be responsive to the demands of the finances of the business as well as the demands of the consumer." He adds that the problem for most health care managers is that they began as he did - as health care providers - but never received business training when they moved away from care giving to care management.
"Compared to a Kellogg or University of Chicago program that is theoretically based, the LFGSM program is so much more practical."
Hoeppner believes that LFGSM helped him grow not only in business acumen but in having an understanding of how his industry runs, from marketing to purchasing and delivery of services.
"Anyone can say 'I know business, I've been doing this for years'," Hoeppner believes. "But to truly understand your industry and know what to do when forces of the industry change is something that I got from the Lake Forest MBA program"
Hoeppner said that, "Compared to a Kellogg or University of Chicago program that is theoretically based, the LFGSM program is so much more practical. Especially for someone in my industry, it was so beneficial to have delivery of the message from professionals in the field so that I could understand what is going on in their industry and compare it to what's going on in mine."
Now that he's graduated, Hoeppner occasionally thinks back to his days commuting to LFGSM. "I look back in hindsight and think, 'Man, were you crazy for driving that far.' But it was very much worth it."
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