Pittsburgh, Pa., USA - June 5, 2012, Pittsburgh, Pa., USA - Highmark, Inc., a healthcare company, announced the appointment of William Winkenwerder, Jr., as the company's new president and chief executive officer.
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Dr. Winkenwerder has significant experience in medical care delivery, health insurance operations and national health policy. Among his accomplishments was his tenure as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs in the U.S. Department of Defense from October 2001 through April 2007, where he led the Military Health System and served as the principal medical advisor to Secretaries of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates.
Dr. Winkenwerder was appointed special assistant to the administrator for the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid for the Department of Health and Human Services in 1987, and, in 1988, was recruited to Kaiser Permanente in Atlanta as the director of Quality Assurance and later became associate medical director.
In 1992, he was offered the position of vice president and chief medical officer for Prudential Health Care's Southern operations. In 1996, he was recruited by Emory University as the associate vice president for Health Affairs and vice president for the Academic Medical Center, where he was responsible for managing a 100-plus physician practice group.
Dr. Winkenwerder was vice chairman and executive vice president for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts from 1998-2001, and then joined the Department of Defense in September 2001. When 9/11 occurred, the appointment as the assistant secretary of Defense was accelerated and he began his position 10 days after 9/11. Shortly thereafter, he was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Dr. Winkenwerder has received numerous awards and recognition, including the Distinguished Service Award from the Department of Defense in 2006, and the Nathan Davis Award from the American Medical Association in 2005. In 2006, Modern Healthcare named him the third most powerful physician executive in America.
Dr. Winkenwerder was also named a Fellow in the American College of Physicians in 1998. Most recently, Dr. Winkenwerder has served as the chairman and CEO of the Winkenwerder Company, a consulting firm based in Alexandria, Va. that he founded in 2007. The company specializes in strategic advisory services to leading health care companies and organizations across America. ■