• Baylor alum receives Texas Hospital Association’s highest honor

    Jon Foster

    The ties between Baylor and the healthcare industry are almost too long to cover in a single blog post.

    Connections to Baylor College of Medicine and the Baylor Scott & White Health system provide excellent starting points for Baylor graduates, who benefit as students from multiple highly ranked programs that prepare them for careers in the field. The long list of prominent alumni in the field includes both the CEO and president of Baylor Scott & White, a former Baylor Health CEO, the president of a system of rehabilitation and nursing centers, and a retired U.S. Army major general who served as Commanding General of the Army Medical Department and School, just for starters.

    Here’s one more name to know: Jon Foster, BBA ’84, president of the HCA America Group and this year’s recipient of the Earl M. Collier Award for Distinguished Health Care Administration, the Texas Hospital Association’s highest honor.

    In his role at HCA, the world’s largest hospital system, Foster oversees 80 hospitals across 10 states. But he got his first taste of the healthcare industry as a student at Baylor when his girlfriend’s father, a physician from East Texas, took interest in his future; that Baylor connection guided Foster in the post-graduate academic requirements necessary for a healthcare career and facilitated introductions with hospital executives across Texas.

    “My time at Baylor opened my eyes to the many opportunities available to me beyond what I may have originally imagined as a first-semester freshman,” he told Baylor Magazine in 2012, when he received a Meritorious Achievement Award from the university. “In fact, a great deal of whatever I may have had the good fortune to do in my career can be traced back to Baylor and how my years there influenced me.”

    Foster isn’t just a Baylor graduate; he’s also a Baylor parent, with two daughters currently enrolled at Baylor, and he has often returned to share his knowledge of the industry with Baylor students (including at last fall’s dedication of the Foster Campus for Business & Innovation).

    Sic ’em, Jon Foster!