CEO Leadership School Speakers:
The CEO School, which begins each NAHC Annual Meeting, was designed to help the industry’s present and future leaders. The goal is to put them in touch with many of the best and brightest from other industries who have been asked to share the secrets of success. The CEO School, therefore, is very much a leadership or managment seminar.
It is human nature for every industry leader to believe that their issues and problems are unique and to some extent this is true. However, there are far more commonalities across the board from industry to industry than there are differences. The CEO School allows NAHC’s leaders to listen and learn, to extrapolate from other industry executives and hopefully to find answers which they can implement immediately when they return home.
The CEO Schools is NAHC’s way of building the intellectual equity of its members. Home care and hospice CEO’s are often too busy mired in the paperwork and red tape to read as much as they would like. The CEO School brings the experts to them, face to face, and helps teach them, challenge them and inspire them. Its purpose is to, in the words of Stephen Covey, “sharpen the saw.”
Following is the list of those who will appear at the CEO School this year. Parenthetically, a new section of the NAHC book store this year will feature the best in the latest leadership and management books, including several authored by those who will present at the NAHC Annual Meeting.
The fee to attend the CEO School is $160. To register for this event, visit our online registration section.
James A. Autry
Poet, Author, Former Fortune 500 Executive, Management Expert, Respected Consultant and Humanitarian
 In 1991, James A. Autry closed out a 31-year career as a Fortune 500 executive. Giving up the top post with the Meredith Corporation, a $550 million company, he chose instead to be an author, poet, husband and father to his eight year old son. In doing so, his career took flight. With the publication of his eight books, especially Love and Profit, The Art of Caring Leadership, he became an icon, a larger-than-life figure who inspires everyone to put more love into the workplace and thereby produce exemplary products and services leading to a handsome bottom line.
The seemingly paradoxical juxtaposition of the two words "love" and "profit" caught the public imagination. Even skeptics who read his book became converts. It became a best seller and won the Johnson, Smith and Knisley Award in 1992 for having the greatest impact on Executive Thinking. Along the way, Autry was featured by Bill Moyers in his special, "The Power of the Word" and by Garrison Keeler on his PBS Radio special. Mr. Autry is also the subject of three videos including "Love and Profit," which won a Telly Award.
Mr. Autry's most recent book, entitled The Spirit of Retirement, makes the point that everyone should keep on learning and try to improve the quality of life for others. In the highly acclaimed The Servant Leader he makes the point that the best leaders are those who constantly look for ways to be of service to others, including their employees, their customers and their stockholders.
Mr. Autry was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He attended the University of Mississippi and served his country flying Air Force jet fighters in Europe during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. He joined the Meredith Corporation in 1960 as a copy editor for The Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. Such was his impact, that two years later he was named managing editor. He was named editor in 1970 and held this position until 1979 when he was promoted to senior vice president at Meredith as well as president of its Magazine Group which included Better Homes and Gardens and Good Housekeeping, two of the most popular U.S. publications.
Mr. Autry says he chose to leave the company after three decades in order to find other ways to serve. He kept his promise to spend more time with his wife, Sally Pedersen, and their son, but he also found time to write and volunteer. He served as chairman of People for the American Way, which fought to protect the civil rights of all Americans. He was for many years, chairman of the Epilepsy Foundation of America and president of the Institute for Advancement of Health. Mr. Autry pioneered the field of service journalism and helped to establish chairs in this area of specialty at the University of Missouri and University of Mississippi schools of journalism.
Today, Mr. Autry is in demand as a public speaker. He is a passionate advocate for civil and human rights. He continues his crusade to make caring the central value and compass of all U.S. corporations. Journalists and Former Presidential Press Secretary Bill Moyers described him eloquently by saying, "If Keats and Adam Smith were born again, they'd be Jim Autry." No one is more admired than this humble man who wants to be remembered as a good father and husband, and as one who cared and tried to make a difference in the lives of others.
Roger J. Dow
Author, Management Expert, Former Vice President for Global Sales at Marriott International, Currently President and CEO of the Travel Industry Association of America
 Roger Dow is universally recognized as one of the nation's top experts in corporation management. He is the premiere expert in his area of specialization which includes marketing and sales.
Mr. Dow began his career as a lifeguard with one of the nation's first Marriott Hotels. Over the next 34 years he rose through the ranks to the position of Senior Vice President for Global and Field Sales for Marriott International. In this position he was the leader of Marriott's 10,000 person worldwide sales force.
Mr. Dow was born in New Jersey. He earned his Bachelor of Science Degree from Seton Hall University and served with distinction in the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam. He was awarded the Bronze Star and other citations.
After receiving his honorable discharge from the Army, he rejoined Marriott where his intelligence, his work ethic and his love of people came to the attention of Marriott President, Bill Marriott.
During his more than three decades of work with Marriott, he directed every aspect of the company's sales and marketing including: advertising, public relations, promotion, sales training, compensation and succession planning. He developed Marriott Rewards, the world's leading frequent traveler award program.
With his help, Marriott increased from six hotels in the U.S. to more than 2,800 hotels and resorts in 69 countries worldwide. He also played a role in Marriott's decision to buy the controlling interest in Ritz Carlton Hotels.
Mr. Dow has written two best selling books: Turned On - Eight Vital Insights to Energize Your People, Customers and Profits and The Trust Imperative - The Competitive Advantage of Trust Based Business Relationships.
Mr. Dow speaks frequently on leadership, management, sales and marketing. He advises audiences to have the courage to set audacious goals, to match their core strengths with customer needs, to simplify operations, to do the right things as well as do things right. He suggests hiring the "heart" and not the "head" and creating an environment where people can be great.
Mr. Dow who has won awards to numerous to mention including the highest award for the American Society of Association Executives. On January 1, 2005, he accepted a position as President and CEO of the Travel Industry Association of America the umbrella trade association which speaks for the nation's $555 billion U.S. travel and tourism industry.
Raymond A. Johnson
Former Chairman Nordstrom, Inc., Principal, RAJ, LLC Consulting
 The name Nordstrom is synonymous with service, quality and excellence. The department store was created in Seattle, Washington in 1901 by John W. Nordstrom. The original value mission statement that survives to this day is, "Offer the customer the best possible service, selection, quality and value."
From one store in downtown Seattle and revenues of only a few thousand dollars a year, the greater Nordstrom Company today is a conglomerate of 132 stores in 25 states, with total revenues of $7.1 billion last year and total assets of $4.6 billion.
It is common knowledge that margins in the retail business are very low and that competition in the Department store trade continues to increase. In the wake of so-called "big box" stores such as Wal-Mart, many department stores have gone out of business of merged. Somehow, Nordstrom not only survived but also prospered, bucking this powerful tide. The reason why this is true, say experts, is Nordstrom's reputation for customer service.
The company has empowered its employees to go to any lengths to satisfy the customer. One story involves a bride who took back her wedding dress following the wedding saying she was unhappy and no one praised her dress. Reportedly, Nordstrom's employee responded by giving her the money back. The good will that Nordstrom received when this story got around far surpassed the small amount it lost in returning the money to someone who obviously had no right to it.
If Nordstrom is synonymous with excellence and service, then Raymond Johnson is the personification of that ideal. He graduated from Western Washington University with dreams of running his own retail business. He took an entry level job at Nordstrom in 1969 and found that it was a perfect fit with his own values. Before long he was running the company's second largest store with an extraordinary degree of autonomy. Johnson was promoted because of his performance to a variety of executive and management positions at Nordstrom Inc. in both California and Washington.
Mr. Johnson was eventually promoted to the position of co-chairman of Nordstrom and to a place on the company's Board of Directors. In 1977, he retired from the company in order to pursue other interests. In June 2002, Mr. Johnson was again hired as CEO of Nordstrom's Catalogue and Internet Division called NordstromDirect. He retired from this position in 2004 but still manages a number of special projects for the company through his Company RAJ, LLC Consulting. He remains a member of the Nordstrom Board of Directors.
Mr. Johnson spends a fair amount of his time giving back to the community. He believes in the aphorism that to whom much is given, much is expected. He has agreed to speak to the members of the home care and hospice community, a group very close to his heart, during the NAHC Annual Meeting. He will provide a first person account of the elements that made Nordstrom successful. The goal is to identifying principles that can be integrates
into practice by home care and hospice organizations.
Stephen C. Lundin, PhD
Author, Filmmaker, Business School Professor and Humanitarian
 Stephen C. Lundin is a bit of a Renaissance man. Seemingly, he can do everything and do it well. He is perhaps best known as an author having collaborated with two of his colleagues to produce the runaway best selling book, Fish.
Fish and its successors, Fish Sticks and Fish Tales, examine what made it possible for John Yokoyama to transform his tiny fish stall in Seattle's World Famous Pike Place Market into a multimillion dollar business.
Dr. Lundin's involvement began with the video which he helped develop with his partner John Christiansen. Fish the video has been incorporated into the orientation and training programs by thousands of corporations around the world. Renowned management expert Ken Blanchard, who wrote the forward to the book always incorporates the video in his presentations.
The principle thesis of the book Fish, is that success in business is really a simple matter. It begins with bringing a team together, each one of them with a positive attitude and training them to do the right thing. A second absolute is to make whatever work is involved fun. Another key principle is to provide superlative customer service which Dr. Lundin describes as "making their day" or "exceeding their highest expectations."
Dr. Lundin will present these principles in this presentation with specific application to home care and hospice. He has a passion to help the caring community; he and his wife, Janell, helped to create the first hospice in Charlestown, West Virginia.
The book Fish has been on The Wall Street Journal and Business Week best seller list for the last five years some 5 million copies have been printed, and the book has been translated into 38 languages. Following the CEO School, attendees at the October 23-26 National Association for Home Care & Hospice Annual Meeting will have the unique opportunity to visit the Pike Place Market and see The World Famous Pike Place Fish Market in person.
Dr. Lundin today is a professor of business at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He works as a consultant with a list of clients that includes: Johnson and Johnson, 3M, Proctor and Gamble (P&G), Wells Fargo and MicroSoft.
Earlier in his career Dr. Lundin, a.k.a. "Big Tuna," worked at a summer camp for physically challenged children called, Camp Courage; he also worked as Dean of a Business School and managed a Health Care Review Service for 172 hospitals. Further, he also lists posts such as dishwasher, golf caddy, small business owner, hockey rink supervisor and public speaker on his resume. What is not listed there is the long list of charities this modest man continues to support.
Neil J. Sellers
President, N.J. Sellers & Company,
World Acclaimed Expert in Strategic Business Planning
 Walt Disney once said that the number one mistake most businesses make is that they are trying to execute while still in the planning phases of a project. Neil J. Sellers, one of Disney's star disciples, knows the importance of thorough and comprehensive planning, and has a rare gift for helping to teach and guide corporate leaders through this process and on to execution.
Because of his past impressive career with Disney and Johnson & Johnson, Mr. Sellers was well prepared to provide guidance to Fortune 500 corporations such as Ford Motors and Domino's Pizza. Mr. Seller's was equally well prepared to help hospice and home care clients including the National Association for Homecare & Hospice and the Foundation for Hospice and Homecare in a career that dates back more than 30 years.
Sellers makes his home in Orlando, Florida. He is a graduate of Rollins College and Florida State University where he earned both his B.S. and Masters Degree in Business Administration. He served his country completing two combat duty tours in Southeast Asia as a Naval Aviator before beginning his career with Disney.
While at Walt Disney World, Mr. Sellers was a member of the key management team, which was responsible for the planning and construction of the $1 billion EPCOT Center Project. At Johnson & Johnson, Mr. Sellers was responsible for the plant fiber finishing operation, which produces 21 internationally marketed lines. Mr. Sellers left the Disney Organiza-tion to start his own consulting business. He quickly developed a client list which included up to 100 top level corporations, some national and some international. This included many of the important players in the field of home
care and hospice, including VNA of Dallas, Texas, Central Healthcare System, Allacare, Central Mississippi Care at Home, Carolina Medical Center Home Healthcare, Hospice of Central Mississippi, and Simione Consultants, LLC. Mr. Sellers was also in demand as a keynote speaker for state, federal, and international trade association meetings. He conducted seminars on strategic business planning for a wide variety of clients.
Eight years ago, Mr. Sellers was persuaded by the Reverend Billy Graham to join the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association to develop and serve as the full time Executive Director for the Billy Graham Training Center. Mr. Sellers completed a term of five highly successful years in this position, and as previously arranged with Reverend Graham, he returned to Orlando to resume his Consulting Business at the end of 2003.
Mr. Sellers today is even more in demand than he was eight years ago. Mr. Sellers is a highly accomplished and spiritual person, who has used his gifts to help others. His resume includes many professional credentials, honors and recognitions, such as his certification by the Institute of Management Consultants in Washington, DC, which has conferred upon him the
prestigious status of a CMC, or Certified Management Consultant. What his biography does not show, is the generous amounts of pro bono work, donations and contributions that he has made in cash or kind, to help numerous philanthropic organizations including The Caring Institute.
Mr. Sellers makes a point of telling non-profits that they must learn to exhibit all the efficiencies of well-run for-profit corporations, while maintaining their central mission of caring and superlative service. He references Mother Teresa and the professional manner in which she ran the Missionaries of Charity. She said, No margin, no mission,Ó quotes Mr. Sellers who will discuss these principles with the audience at the CEO School.
Speaker Schedule
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