Q&A with Pete Correll on Grady

Tim Darnell

April 1, 2008

The man who led Georgia-Pacific for more than a decade is poised to take on an even greater challenge – leading Grady Memorial Hospital out of a financial quagmire resulting from mismanagement to a population explosion. After months of study and negotiations, both Fulton and DeKalb counties have approved a plan to privatize Grady with a new, non-profit management corporation.

The new Grady board includes Correll; F. Duane Ackerman, retired CEO of BellSouth; Thomas D. Bell, president and CEO of Cousins Properties; real estate attorney Robert Burroughs, Burroughs Johnson Hopewell; Atlanta schools superintendent Beverly Hall; retired hospital administrator Sandra Holliday; attorney Michael R. Hollis; Pierluigi Mancini, a psychologist; Robert W. Miller, a retired partner of King & Spalding; real estate attorney Aasia Mustakeem; retired Ebenezer Baptist Church pastor Rev. Joseph Roberts; Joe Rogers Jr., CEO of Waffle House; Michael Russell, CEO of H.J. Russell & Co.; James Stephenson, president and CEO of Yancey Bros. Co.; Grady Health System CEO Pamela Stephenson; Dr. Louis Sullivan, secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services; and endodontist Dr. Daniel Whitner.

Business to Business recently spoke with Correll about his involvement, and his interest in Grady.

Business to Business: At this point in your life, why take on a challenge such as Grady?

Pete Correll: My wife says it's because I don't have good sense. But that answer aside, I've run a big corporation. I understand how to run a board, and I know the difference between being a chairman of a board and being a CEO. We need a good management team to run the hospital.

Atlanta is my home. I have two kids and five grandkids, and the health care system is important to me. Grady is the lynchpin to that health care system. If Grady closes, the whole health care system crumbles. I don't want to see that happen.

BTB: What are your impressions of the new board?

Correll: We're encouraged ... There were some surprises, and there are some new members to get acquainted with. But now we can move forward ... and get to the important work of making Grady stronger. Our purpose remains what it has always been: making sure Grady gets the additional funding it needs and to protect its historic mission as a safety-net hospital for this region.

BTB: Why is Grady so important?

Correll:  There are 1 million visits annually to Grady, and a large portion of those visits come from uninsured patients. The rest of the system would have to take those, and the rest of the system does not have that capacity.

BTB: How do you respond to critics (such as state Sen. Vincent Fort) who say that a board composed of people such as this one, can't run a public hospital like Grady?

Correll:  That's rubbish. This board is committed to Grady. The whole purpose of this entire exercise is to save Grady. This board is ethnically diverse, gender-wise diverse and has a wide variety of experience. This board is the most powerful hospital board in Georgia. This is all about giving Grady a strong future, and that's exactly what we're going to do.