Kenneth Rethmeier

A native of California, Dr. Rethmeier is a graduate of UCLA with a BS in Public Health, and holds a Master of Science in Public Health (Medical Care Administration) and Doctor of Public Health (Health Care Administration & Organizational Behavior) from the University of North Carolina. He also studied at the Welsh National School of Medicine in Cardiff, Wales.

Dr. Rethmeier had a highly decorated twenty-two-year career in the U.S. Navy retiring as a Captain in the Medical Service Corps. During his Navy career he served in numerous capacities including two tours with the Marine Corp, is a Vietnam veteran, led two major reorganizations of Navy Medicine, & served as the Commanding Officer of the Naval School of Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD.

Upon his retirement from the Navy, Dr. Rethmeier continued his work in healthcare followed by 6 years in the financial services industry before founding The Rethmeier Group, LLC. Dr. Rethmeier also held positions at Premier, Inc. in Charlotte, North Carolina, and The Hospital Association of Pennsylvania. At Premier, he was the lead consultant to the Adventist Health System in Orlando, Florida assisting in the development and direction of the Education Center at Celebration Health a part of the Disney Development Corporation’s community of the future in Florida. At HAP, he directed a series of hospital-business health career coalitions known as Private Sector Initiatives designed to maximize the quality & continuity of healthcare services. In addition, he led a statewide innovative initiative to conduct & publish the results of community health needs assessments. HAP’s work was recognized nationally for its contribution to the advancement of & shift in thinking about how to manage networks of comprehensive healthcare services. His research efforts at HAP were instrumental in support and advocacy of numerous initiatives re the tax exempt status of hospitals, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, & working with the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council and its efforts to rationalize quality measurement of hospital performance.

During the past 12 years, Dr. Rethmeier has dedicated much of his time working with Project Hope as faculty for an innovative Health Care Management program in Central & Eastern Europe. In addition to workshops on innovation for healthcare reform at the Annual Conference of the European Health Management Association in Innsbruck, Austria & the United Kingdom, Dr. Rethmeier has been recently appointed as Faculty in the Department of International Health, Maasstricht University, NL. He has also been actively involved as a co-author of a major project funded by the European Commission developing, publishing & delivering "Leadership for Public Health in Europe (LEPHIE) which can be found by clicking on www.lephie.eu. You can find a series of articles & commentaries located on "Additional Resources".

Dr. Rethmeier has worked extensively as a consultant in a variety of settings specializing in organizational design & management, transformation of business models, quality management, leadership retreats, implementing the concepts & tools of the learning organization, & organizational development. His clients have represented a broad spectrum of companies in healthcare, financial services, & the oil industry including Tenet Healthcare, Wachovia, FreddieMac, US Postal Service, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, STARCON International, & Celebration Health & Disney Development Corporation in Orlando, Florida to name just a few.

Dr. Rethmeier is a frequent speaker on topics such as Leadership for the 21st Century, Execution & the Art of Getting Things Done, Community Health Needs Assessments, the Principles of the Learning Organization, &, his foundational theme...Create Your Future...Don't Take One From Strangers!

Dr. Rethmeier has held numerous academic appointments & has published numerous articles on leadership, healthcare reform, & community health needs assessments.