· Mike was formerly President and CEO of CHG Healthcare Services, the largest physician staffing company in the United States, and today serves as its Chairman of the Board.

After that, my family moved to Tonawanda in 1966 and I attended St. Amelia’s for 7^th and 8^th grade. That’s when I first heard about O’Hara. A lot of kids from St. Amelia’s went to O’Hara for high school.

As you know, Dave, my mother passed away last year, a week before her 100^th birthday. She died before the O’Hara Hall of Fame induction ceremony where I was to be inducted. I was looking forward to thanking her publicly for all the sacrifices she made.

DAVE: And your siblings?

MIKE: I mentioned my older sister, Kathy. I also have a younger sister, Karen, and a younger brother, John. They all live in the Williamsville area these days. They send me Bills, Sabres, and Bisons paraphernalia to help me keep up with the hometown teams. (Laughs)

You may recall that on the O’Hara report card at that time, you received academic grades and you were also rated on behavior. There were a couple of times when I received “unsatisfactory” grades for my conduct. One year it even prevented me from starting the regular season on the basketball team. I had to miss quite a few games. Of course, I thought that was very unfair. (Laughs)

MIKE: I was a big reader in high school, and I still am today.

MIKE: (Laughs) "Pearl" was my favorite player at that time, but the only thing I had in common with him was bad knees! (Laughs)

Those two experiences, at O’Hara and Canisius, definitely helped shape my view of the purpose of life - and they still do today.

MIKE: At that time, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. In some of the HawkTalks you've written, I’m always impressed when an alumni will say, ‘I always knew what I wanted to do for a career when I was in high school.’ For me, I didn’t have a clue as to what I wanted to do. (Laughs)

A couple of friends were going to ECC, so I decided to give that a try. My friend and fellow O’Hara classmate, Dan Zirnheld, talked me into playing basketball at ECC, which I did for a year and it was great fun. I also began working at the Chevy plant in Tonawanda during the summers when school was out.        

After a year and a half attending ECC, my dad suggested that if I still didn’t know what I wanted to do that I should look for full-time work. I took my father’s advice and joined what we jokingly referred to as the ‘family business’ – working for Chevy. My dad worked there and so did some of my uncles. My cousins, the Montours, of O’Hara renown, worked there in the summers too.

I attended night school at Canisius College for about five years. I took only one or two business courses at a time since I was also working full-time.

Sales and Recruiting Manager – Supplemental Healthcare Services, Inc. (1987 – 1990)

MIKE: I was always a late bloomer! (Laughs) In 1987, I began to work for a friend and fellow 1972 classmate, Leo Blatz. Leo owned a traveling nurse staffing company called Supplemental Healthcare Services. I became a Sales and Recruiting Manager at the company.

I’ll always be grateful to Leo for introducing me to the industry that I grew to love. In 1988, I moved to St. Petersburg, Florida to set up a branch of the company.

When I arrived in Florida, I enrolled at Eckerd College to finish my degree and earned a B.A. in Management in 1989. Later I was awarded a B.S. in Business Administration from Canisius. Again -- always a late bloomer! (Laughs)

DAVE: You did that for about three years. What next?

The company, Healthcare Staffing Solutions, provided temporary nursing staff to hospitals and home care agencies in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. We were a small start-up company. I had a staff of seven or eight. I did that for two years, until a bigger opportunity came along.

MIKE: I was recruited by a company in Houston, Texas that was starting a physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy staffing company. It was another start-up company - but this time in the rehab therapy segment.

MIKE: Yes, I was. In 1997, I was recruited by investors who were planning to buy a company called CompHealth, a physician staffing company. We closed the acquisition in early 1998 and I was named President and CEO.

MIKE: We just went to work every day and said, ‘Let’s figure out how we can do more to expand our place in the market and put more doctors to work in areas where they’re needed to positively impact the patients and communities where they live.’ We believed in what we were doing. It was a mission that was easy to rally people around.

When we bought the predecessor company, CompHealth, it was a relatively small company with $100 million in annual revenues and roughly 200 employees. Over time, we grew it into the largest physician staffing company in the United States, with annual revenues approaching $2 billion. We grew to 3,500 employees, and were staffing 20,000 doctors, as well as 10,000 nurses and therapists annually.

MIKE: We made sure that the company remained true to its core values. Our defining core value was always to 'put people first.'

We were somewhat unique. Most companies in the business world focus on things like strategy, execution and discipline. We did too, but we put greater emphasis on our company’s culture.

It turned out to be a powerful business strategy. Our staff had the highest levels of engagement and the lowest employee turnover rate in the industry – by far. That meant we had the most tenured, experienced people in the industry to help us out-perform our competitors. I believe it was this unwavering focus on our culture that allowed us to achieve that success.

Another component of our culture was that we practiced “servant leadership.” The premise of servant leadership is that your whole purpose as a leader is to help others succeed. It is not to step on the throat of the person next to you so that you might advance your career.

In 2016, you were the Democratic Party’s candidate for governor of Utah. Apparently, your two-terms as Class President at Cardinal O’Hara were not enough to satisfy your political ambitions.

MIKE: The best thing about running was that I got the chance to visit every county in Utah. I got to know a lot of great people and experienced all of Utah. Utah is a great state with very interesting and beautiful geography – everything from the Red Rock Desert to lush mountains and valleys.

The toughest part? That probably would have been going out and giving speeches every day and the constant meetings with groups of people. I’m actually kind of an introvert, so that wasn’t natural for me. On the other hand, I will admit that I got to enjoy it somewhat. I actually appreciated being pushed out of my comfort zone.

As you might guess, the focus of the foundation is on things that our family is passionate about, like social justice causes, educational causes, poverty relief and the environment. One of the things we’ve done on the educational front is to create scholarships for students of all ages. In fact, we recently funded two scholarships at O’Hara!

Now, as long as we are talking about your philanthropic efforts in education, I’m going to shift the conversation slightly to ask you about another recent donation by the Weinholtz Family Foundation to Cardinal O’Hara High School.

I had a series of conversations with Renee Orr, the Director of Advancement at O’Hara. In one of our discussions, I asked her about O’Hara’s endowment fund. Renee told me that O’Hara did not have one. That's actually not unusual for a school like O’Hara that is so tuition dependent. I know because I served on the board of trustees of a private K-12 school and a private college here in California, and I know how important endowments are. Endowments help ensure the future sustainability of the school.

I spoke to Mike Rizzo, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees at O’Hara (and a former neighbor). I asked what we could do to generate interest among other alumni. I told him I’d be happy to do a matching campaign. From my experience, that kind of campaign can be very powerful. Mike and Renee loved that idea and they came up with the Thanks A Million campaign. I offered to match up to an additional $1 million in money that was raised toward the endowment, to encourage other alumni to give.

That was the beginning of it. Renee and her team have done a great job in putting together the Thanks A Million campaign. I think the way the campaign is set up makes it easy and accessible for other alumni to contribute.

It’s not so much about the amount you contribute, but rather, how many alumni we can get to show their appreciation for their years at O’Hara and what that can mean to other young men and women in the future.

What are some fun things you like to?

In 2019, Mike was selected for induction into the Cardinal O'Hara Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame. Due to COVID, however, the induction ceremony was pushed to October 2021. Unfortunately, Mike was unable to attend the October ceremony.

Our next Hall of Fame class will be welcomed in April of 2022 and we have invited Mike to that ceremony!

Congratulations, Mike on your induction into the COHS Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame!

by Dave Lovering '74

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