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We are happy to announce that Edward Charles Burke has joined The University Hospital and will serve as Chief Financial Officer. He will also serve as a special advisor to Dr. Bruce C. Vladeck, Interim President, UMDNJ.
A Marine with two purple hearts, a former Director with the Office of Veteran's Affairs, and an entrepreneur, Mr. Burke has held influential positions in various industries all over the world. He comes to UH with more than thirty years of combined experience in finance, management, academia, and healthcare.
Among his many accomplishments (to him, the most important of all) were his efforts during the Hurricane Katrina disaster while serving as CFO of the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans (MCLO). During Mr. Burke's tenure from 2004 until earlier this year, MCLO was similar to UMDNJ-UH in Newark. A sprawling campus with a budget of more than $514 million, two teaching hospitals, 768 beds, two medical schools, and an extremely busy and state-of-the-art trauma center, MCLO, like UMDNJ-UH, was vital to its community. In fact, besides MCLO's, there was no other trauma center for 400 miles.
Globe Trotter
Prior to MCLO, Mr. Burke had tenures in parts of the world not commonly listed on resumes.
For instance, he spent a total of seven years in Soldotna, Alaska, where he sought not just a lifestyle change, but also to run his own business. So from 1997-2002 he created and ran his own telecommunications company called Tundra Communications. Through Tundra, Mr. Burke oversaw microwave engineering and installation projects in thirty-two states and seven countries.
But with a reputation for financial acumen, the world of healthcare was never truly far away (even in Soldatna). So it was no surprise when leaders from his own community hospital asked if he could help direct a much-needed operational and financial turnaround. He accepted a job as CFO in 2002 and, in only two years time, guided Central Peninsula Hospital to profitability through managerial and financial best-practices.
Mr. Burke's career also led him to international experiences including: a tenure from 1994-1997 with HCI International, an ambitious hospital start-up in Glasgow, Scotland that had academic partnerships with Harvard University and The University of Glasgow, and which had presences in London, Cairo, Athens, Abu Dhabi and Milan; two years in Tokyo, Japan, where, starting in 1985, he worked for Nihon SMS, a Japanese/British/American health information systems company; and two years in London, England after signing on with a management consulting firm called the Vera Institute in 1977.
Cross Country
In addition to Alaska, Mr. Burke traversed the U.S. with appointments in California, New York and Washington.
In 1990, in Hemet, California, he served as CFO of the then 550-bed Valley Health Hospital System. In four years time, he helped achieve an operations and financial turnaround, eventually becoming the administrator for the center's main 334-bed hospital.
From 1998-1990, Mr. Burke worked for New York Hospital - Cornell University Medical Center as Senior Vice President, Treasurer and CFO. In addition to day-to-day financial operations, he managed an extensive $500 million real estate portfolio and helped the medical center take an aggressive approach to debt management by engineering two bond issues; a mortgage facility; a lease facility; and a tax-exempt line of credit.
At Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) in New York, one of the largest hospital systems in the nation, Mr. Burke served as Vice President of Finance and CFO from 1981-1985. There, he oversaw a budget of more than $1.4 billion dollars.
Immediately preceding HHC, Mr. Burke served as Assistant Director with New York City's Office of Management and Budget from 1979-1981, where he managed a total of $4.5 billion in operating budgets for 28 city agencies. His efforts helped stabilize city programs that were wracked by a previous fiscal crisis, including New York City's Board of Education and Police Department.
He also worked in Washington from 1974-1977 for the State Department of Social and Health Services where he served as a Director in the Veteran's Affairs and Vocational Rehabilitation Services Agencies.
What is Your Formula for Dealing with Challenge and Change?
"Communication is of the utmost importance," says Mr. Burke. "In my experience - no matter what kind of organization - open and honest communication is necessary to lift morale and establish credibility. This not only helps achieve financial stability, it motivates the entire workforce." He also has a theory, which he calls "peeling the onion," or in other words, getting to the bottom of an issue. "My approach is simple: Solve the problem. Don't rearrange things. Don't shift blame. Just do everything possible to get to the heart of the matter."
Accomplishment of a Lifetime
Even though he has had a remarkable career, managerial track record, and has been, literally, around the world, it is the unforgettable experience and the work he did during the Katrina disaster at MCLO that tops his list of accomplishments and that defines his outlook on teamwork, leadership and sacrifice.
During Katrina, Mr. Burke experienced and witnessed (as did most people who were directly involved with the disaster at its peak) the extremes of human nature. Even for a globe-trotting, well-seasoned businessman like Mr. Burke, there is no experience that can rival Katrina.
After several sleepless, dangerous and unforgettable, days of "bagging" patients (meaning manually oxygenating patients); using office furniture as tourniquets and spine boards; rowing patients through the flooded streets of downtown New Orleans; begging for help; and generally stretching the limits of human resilience and ingenuity; Mr. Burke and his colleagues accomplished the feat of a lifetime. Their collective efforts got nearly 1,000 patients, employees and storm refugees (of which forty-seven were critical condition patients and nineteen of which were ventilator patients) out of harm's way.
He left New Orleans only after doing what he says was "everything humanly possible before and after the disaster." From that experience he took with him a new appreciation for life, teamwork, and a profound respect for the people who were on the frontlines every day: emergency workers, doctors, nurses, law enforcement agents, and fellow hospital administrators and staff.
Now, after more than thirty years of experience and world travel, Mr. Burke says he's come full circle. "My foundations all point back to New Jersey. For instance, my military career and the launch of my professional career began in Iselin," he says. He was also educated in New Jersey. A graduate with a Masters in Public and International Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and with many family members living in New Jersey and in Staten Island, he says he "never really lost touch."
In addition to an MPA from Princeton, Mr. Burke has Bachelors and Masters Degrees from the University of California in Riverside, CA, and is a Certified Healthcare Executive (CHE) through the American College of Health Care Executives.
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