Faculty Profiles
Michael Smerconish
Host, The Michael Smerconish Program, SiriusXM, Host, CNN’s Smerconish, Newspaper Columnist, Author
Michael A. Smerconish is the host of The Michael Smerconish Program on SiriusXM, host of CNN’s Smerconish on Saturday mornings, newspaper columnist, and author. Smerconish has often been recognized for his radio work. Talkers magazine has consistently named him one of America’s most important talk show hosts. Smerconish became the first radio host to interview President Barack Obama live from the White House. Smerconish hosts a weekly Saturday TV program on CNN fittingly called Smerconish. He has been a guest on virtually every television program where politics is discussed, including: the NBC Today show, Colbert Report, O’Reilly Factor, Larry King Live, The View, and Real Time With Bill Maher. Smerconish is the author of six books, two of them are New York Times’ best sellers.
Andy Carter
President and CEO, HAP
Andy Carter assumed the role of HAP’s president and CEO during December, 2012. In this role, he represents nearly 240 acute and specialty care hospitals and health systems across the state, providing care for 12.8 million Pennsylvanians. He works with a 28-member board of directors and a team of 50 staff to lead the advocacy, policy, communications, non-dues revenue, and member service initiatives of one of the nation’s largest statewide health care advocacy organizations. Before coming to HAP, Andy served for nearly six years as the president and CEO of the Visiting Nurse Associations of America (VNAA), the national voice for nonprofit, community-based home health and hospice agencies. Before the VNAA, he led the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association, where he created new public funding streams for Ohio’s six regional children’s hospitals and established the nation’s first statewide pediatric quality improvement initiative. Prior to entering the association field, Andy served for 20 years in a variety of leadership positions in community relations, state government, and business in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Ohio. He is an honors graduate of Georgetown University and holds a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is married with two adult children and lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Mike Brunelle
Chief of Staff, Wolf Administration
Mike Brunelle most recently served as Governor Tom Wolf’s Executive Deputy Chief of Staff. Prior to working for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in Washington, D.C., he spent nearly three years as the Executive Director of the SEIU Pennsylvania State Council, where he directed the planning and execution of Council issue and legislative programs and served as staff-level leadership. Before coming to Pennsylvania, Mike worked on various candidate and issue-based campaigns in the Northeast, including the elections of Governor John H Lynch. He served as the Executive Director of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, was a state representative in the New Hampshire General Court, and also served as the Democratic Whip. Mike holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of New Hampshire.
Craig Deao
Managing Director, Huron Group
Craig is a Managing Director at Huron and highly regarded national speaker on leadership, engagement, quality and patient safety. He with works health care executives to create highly reliable organizations where employees want to work, physicians and nurses want to practice, and patients want to receive care. Since 2006, Craig has led Huron’s speaking team. He also co-led the organization’s journey to become a recipient of the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award in 2010. In addition to his full-time work with Huron, he serves as faculty for the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE). Craig’s fieldwork focuses on partnering with senior leadership to achieve breakthrough, sustainable transformation. He is an author of numerous articles in healthcare publications, as well as a book on engagement, and speaks to tens of thousands of leaders annually. Prior to joining Huron, Craig served in several capacities for VHA (now Vizient), including patient safety improvement and executive networking, connecting 2,000 nonprofit health system members across the nation. Born and raised in New Orleans, Craig received two bachelor’s degrees from Louisiana State University. He received a master’s degree in healthcare administration from the University of Minnesota. Craig now lives in Pensacola, Florida, where he has served on the quality committee of his local health system. He is married to Julie and is the proud father of Sam and Jack.
Dr. Kevin Ahmaad Jenkins
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania, Core Investigator, Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP) at the Corporal Crescenz VA Medical Center
Dr. Kevin Ahmaad Jenkins is a dynamic speaker, author, scholar, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and a Core Investigator at the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP) at the Corporal Crescenz VA Medical Center in Philadelphia. Jenkins is appointed within Division of General Internal Medicine and is an Associate Fellow within The Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. He is also the director of the Interpreting Attitudes toward Minorities in Medicine (I AM) Research Group. Dr. Jenkins, who is two-time award winner national journalist, examines the influence of race, racism, and psychosocial stress within medicine. Dr. Jenkins leads research studies that analyze how stress lethally interacts with vascular-based diseases (e.g., heart disease, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes) and Alzheimer’s Disease in high-risk subgroups within the Black community.
Ian Morrison, PhD
Health Care Futurist and Author
Ian Morrison is an internationally known author, consultant, and futurist specializing in long-term forecasting and planning with particular emphasis on health care and the changing business environment. He combines research and consulting skills with an incisive Scottish wit to help public and private organizations plan the,ir longer-term future. Ian has written, lectured, and consulted on a wide variety of forecasting, strategy, and health care topics for government, industry, and a variety of nonprofit organizations in North America, Europe, the Middle-East and Asia. Ian has worked with more than 100 Fortune 500 companies in health care, manufacturing, information technology, and financial services. Recent client sponsors include CVS Health, Kaiser Permanente and the Mayo Clinic. He is a frequent commentator on the future for television, radio, and the print media. Ian is the author of Leading Change in Healthcare: Building a Viable System for Today and Tomorrow (AHA Press, June 2011) and Healthcare in the New Millennium: Vision, Values and Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2002). In 2018 Ian received the American Hospital Association’s Board of Trustees Award, for his more than 20 years of service to the AHA and the healthcare field.