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Med Center CEO Reflects On 27 Years Of Growth

(Carrie Feibel/KUHF Houston Public Radio)
Richard Wainerdi will retire next year as president and CEO of the Texas Medical Center. Wainerdi reflects on the history — and future — of houston’s medical sector.
He started his career as a petroleum engineer, rising to become head of global research at Gulf Oil. But he also collaborated on research projects with doctors and academics.

When Chevron took over Gulf Oil, Wainerdi became president of the Texas Medical Center. He describes the job as running the municipal government of a private city.

“We’re up to 43 million square feet which would make us the 11th largest downtown in the United States. We’ve just had to redo our 12 miles of private streets, we’ve had to do all of our utilities over again.”

The Texas Medical Center also leases land, manages parking and works with Metro on light rail and bus routes. It also coordinates security:

“Because we are the third destination of foreign heads of state after the United Nations and Washington. So we have about one a week of foreign heads of state and so we have a lot of interaction with the federal security agencies.”

Wainerdi says he’ll never forget when the Queen of England visited the DeBakey veterans hospital. Or when the queen’s cousin, a Duchess, came in the 1980s.
(Listen to the full story at KUHF Houston Public Radio)

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