Catalyst Award: Joe Reardon

Joe is your traditional big thinker. He doesn't get into narrow minded thinking. He looks at the bigger picture. I think that big thinking has been contagious and allows us to think beyond the four walls of this place. And what could we do? What could we become? You've got to think big. You have to challenge what's in front of you and really to reach that next level.

That thinking big allows you to stretch in ways that maybe you haven't before. A lot of our, let's call it adolescent growth kind of occurred together while he was the mayor for eight years. And while our health system continued to grow, and I believe Joe actually saw the health system being what it is today, long before many of us did.

He can see the future looking out. He's a great thinker. He thinks about the importance of having economically sustainable programs and processes. He's also a strategic thinker. Those are the characteristics that he sees at our place as well. He's wholly outcome focused and really doesn't need any sort of personal attention. He wants to get to the right result, and I think he's done that time and again for our community, and for our health system.

Joe's a guy that believes all boats rise together, and that's what he practices every day. He wants the best for all players. That vision was there, and it started to really gravitate people to it. And once you get that, you get a momentum and then you see magnet designation, then you see NCI, then you see the campus start to transform, and all of a sudden a conversation about maybe a place that wouldn't be the first choice for a lot of people in the region started becoming the only choice in many ways.

Joe led by saying, do you guys understand that you are an economic engine in Kansas City? In fact, you may be the economic engine in Kansas City, and as health care professionals that's not what you think about. And so you hear that, and what did we end up doing? We formed a community group. We started planning a district around this campus because we knew our vision was to become a destination for health care.

He gives us some guidance on some things that might be a little tricky. You know, there's a political environment we all need to to live with. And Joe always has this really broad, open mind about how to get things done, how to do that with a really inclusive manner, but also making sure that we're paying attention to what needs to happen.

There was absolute risk. You know, any effective leader takes calculated risk, and you always hope that those risks will pay off. Let's go back to the early days of Covid. And we had a lot of challenges here as a health system. We're trying to lead. And I'll never forget this. One of the first phone calls we made was to Joe Reardon.

He simply said, how can we help? And whatever we ask for his help, he delivered. There wasn't, quite frankly, a lot of direction from the federal government about what was happening or what might happen. And you had this anchor at the health system with expertise like no one else, that was opening up in a way to say, let's all get together.

Let's figure this out together. How are things going with Covid in the business community? The response has been overwhelming and very positive. And if not for that, I don't know what we would have done in the Kansas City region. The work that Joe did in terms of consensus building and the collaboration and the coordination during Covid, a lot of ways, is doing the same thing now around the World Cup.

Joe and his team have done a phenomenal job getting us introduced to the different dignitaries that are coming to town, representing the countries that will have base camps here. That's the same kind of thing we're thinking about. We're going to become a bigger destination. And that's kind of that symbiotic thinking that we have with Joe, because in his role, he can be supportive of helping us get there.

Joe believes in our health system. He believes in what we do. He believes in how we’ve impacted people. He believes in the growth of our place. He wants us to be very successful so that we could have an impact on this community and beyond. When we think about a wonderful human being, what do we think about strong character, courage, honesty, loyalty, hard work.

He brings all of that to his professional roles and to his personal life. He is a wonderful human being. He's a Wyandotte County guy and he likes having this really strong organization in his county. Catalyst is somebody who has given their time and talent and treasure to help us get to this point and catalyzed, if you will, the work that we're doing.

And Joe is so well deserving of that recognition. I'm appreciative of the recognition, but I'm humbled by it. And I'm hopeful that what has gone on as we reflect on it is just the beginning. I can't imagine what's going to happen next, but I know it's going to be great for the health system. It's going to be great for our region.