Main Line Health's Wells Stepping Down
Main Line Times
June 7, 2007
By CHERYL ALLISON
Sixteen years ago, when a friend pointed out an ad for a public relations position with Lankenau Hospital, Richard Wells had one reservation.
After living in the city, working with Philadelphia's Graduate Hospital system, he wondered if it wouldn't be just a bit "boring" in the 'burbs.
"Fortunately," he laughs, "I got over myself."
As it turned out, he arrived at the start of what would be a decade and a half of professional and technological growth for the Main Line Health system, not to mention perhaps the most significant physical growth in its hospitals' history.
Now Wells, a Bala Cynwyd resident, is changing roles. Friday marks his last day as Main Line Health's vice president of public affairs, the public voice of the Main Line's primary health care provider and major employer. He's stepping down to start his own public affairs and marketing firm, the Wellynn Group.
"I'm leaving the employment of Main Line Health," he explained in an interview, "but I'll still be involved. Main Line Health will be my first client. There are at least a couple of projects I want to see through."
"I just turned 48," Wells said. That was a good point at which to consider, "Am I going to spend another 20 years at Main Line Health, or 20 years somewhere else? I couldn't see another job in another system better ... than what we're doing at Main Line Health."
At the same time, "It's about taking my professional career to the next level," he said. He wants to bring the skills he's gained in public affairs, sorting out "highly complex issues and making them make sense to folks," to "other industries."
Joining him in the venture is another Main Line Health veteran. Susan Wynne, vice president of marketing, is leaving to become senior vice president at Lancaster General Hospital, but will be a partner in the Wellynn Group.
"Richard came to me about four or five months ago," said Main Line Health President and CEO Jack Lynch. "I was disappointed to lose him, but I'm excited about what he's trying to do."
Richard's contribution to Main Line Health and the community has really been terrific," Lynch added. "He has been a great steward of the community's interests in its health care needs. He'll be missed."
In a sense, Main Line Health spokesman is a job Wells was born to do; raised in Media, he came into the world at Lankenau. But he didn't come to a career in communications by any direct route.
A Penncrest High grad, he went on to earn an English degree at the University of Virginia, came back to Philadelphia, painted houses, went to Europe, then got a job with a company that rented time to other businesses on its mainframe computer. (This was the early '80s.)
It was there he met his future wife, Maria, now head of the elementary foreign language program in Lower Merion schools. He had also begun volunteering as a tutor with the Center for Literacy in West Philadelphia. When it received a grant for a public relations position, he was hired. That led to the job with Graduate Hospital.
His first day at Lankenau was July 1, 1991, and "things started with a bang." Within the first two weeks, legendary former Mayor Frank Rizzo died of a heart attack. Television stations were scrambling for commentary. "I worked very hard to get our doctors in front of the cameras," Wells said.
It wasn't long after that that Main Line Health hired a new CEO, Doug Peters, who worked to bring the more or less independent members — Bryn Mawr, Lankenau, Paoli Memorial and Bryn Mawr Rehabilitation hospitals — into a more cooperative, integrated system. Its next top officer, Ken Hanover, continued that process, asking Wells to take responsibility for public relations and marketing for the system.
There was controversy as the idea of consolidating clinical services such as cardiac surgery was broached. "The community was concerned that Lankenau would just do hearts and nothing else; then it became an issue with the medical staff. That stretched on for 18 months." It took so much of his time, Wells said, that his position was divided, splitting off marketing.
In recent years, as the hospitals and their missions have evolved, many issues have had to do with Main Line Health's physical growth.
"Every time [expansion] came up, [township] planners would say, 'We don't know what you can do without going through variances,'" he said. It was a process of dealing with "a crazy quilt of zoning."
"For planning, we needed to get that cleared up, for us and the communities to know what could happen," Wells said. In Lower Merion Township, the solution Main Line Health sought was new hospital or medical district overlay zones, first at Lankenau, then in Bryn Mawr.
At about the same time, the system, looking toward a new connection between the Bryn Mawr Hospital campus and Lancaster Avenue, began the controversial process to acquire homes in the Central-Summit Grove Avenue neighborhood.
Lankenau, going first, "was not a perfect process," Wells acknowledges. Bryn Mawr also saw years of public meetings and many iterations before its new district was approved.
At Lankenau, there was an agreed-upon five-year hiatus on expansion. Now that period is coming to a close, but with a new process to explore the most inflammatory issue, the second access.
The committee of stakeholders that has been meeting "is so much more inclusive," Wells believes. Not everyone may agree, but "They can point to ... a good process and know everyone was involved and had a say."
Lynch said he has retained Wells' firm for "at least the first year" to continue representation on such issues. However, Wells' and Wynne's departures have "afforded a unique opportunity." Lynch said this week he is conducting interviews fora new, combined public relations and marketing post.
Wells, who has also been active recently in setting up the new Lower Merion Educational Foundation, doesn't plan to take a break.
"My plans are to work, and work extraordinarily hard," to get the new business off the ground. But, he said, "Somehow it doesn't seem like work."