Physically, the now former Amerinet Inc. Chairman and CEO Robert "Bud" Bowen wasn’t a giant among his peers, but that didn’t seem to matter where it counted most.

Bowen’s industry influence and stature as the top executive at one of the nation’s largest and leading group purchasing organizations (consistently within the top five based on annual purchasing volume) cemented him as a towering presence in a field that has come under fire within the last 10 years – first for its relevance, then for its practices – even as it approaches the century mark for longevity. Through it all, Bowen and Amerinet emerged unscathed and untarnished, which came as no surprise to him.

Bowen retired March 31 after two decades with the St. Louis-based GPO.

Bowen joined Amerinet at its founding in June 1986 as senior vice president, responsible for all contracting activities. Promoted to executive vice president in 1988, Bowen served as the company’s chief operations officer until the Amerinet Board of Directors appointed him president in January 1998. Bowen added the title CEO in July 2004. He was regarded for promoting and practicing ethical behavior and corporate integrity throughout his career, something that served him well during the Senate subcommittee hearings on alleged anticompetitive practices by GPOs. During those hearings he emphasized the need for open and inclusive contracting policies and higher customer service standards, eliciting favor on Capitol Hill.

Bowen began his career in healthcare group purchasing in 1977 as director of group purchasing for Haricomp Inc., an organization that later became the Amerinet company, Vector (Providence, RI). Prior to his work with Haricomp, Bowen served as director of purchasing/materials management for New England Management Corp. in Barre, VT. He also served as Tel-American coordinator for the American Hospital Supply Corp. in Bedford, MA. He has served as a chairman of the Health Industry Group Purchasing Association (HIGPA) and as the HIGPA board representative to the Health Industry Business Communication Council (HIBCC). His credentials also include terms as chairman and board member of the Health Care E-business Collaborative (HCeC).

Barely a month after leaving his post, Bowen agreed to share some parting thoughts with Healthcare Purchasing News Senior Editor Rick Dana Barlow about his past, his present and his future.

BOWEN: It is actually 20 years at Amerinet, but 10 years before that with Vector (formerly Haricomp). Having a very active career, with a great deal of travel, I’ve always been reluctant to tackle any meaningful ‘projects’ around the home or in my personal life. Now that I’m retired I’m going back to mowing my own lawn (because no one does it as well as I will), washing my own car and taking time to read more. I also plan to write a book on my family genealogy for my son and his children to understand their roots and their history. Other projects will include building shelving in the basement and finally going through all those boxes of personal possessions that have been building up over the years. Pretty boring stuff, I know, but having the time to do it is a really great feeling!

BOWEN: ‘Retirement’ for me is not code for ‘looking for another job.’ I really do want to be retired from the demands of a full time job. If I continue to stay involved in the healthcare industry, and I think I probably will, I would like to get involved working with small start-up, or niche manufacturers of emerging medical technologies. There are a lot of small companies out there with great products and technology, but the medical product supply channel is totally different than almost any other industry you could imagine. Helping these companies understand how to get their products into the healthcare supply channel is something I think I could assist with.

BOWEN: I’m not suggesting that I would necessarily advocate a GPO strategy in all situations. In some cases it makes good sense, but in others a company may be better off pursuing direct relationships. Now that I am a ‘free agent,’ I think I could provide good objective counsel to smaller suppliers.

BOWEN: I am especially proud of the original Elite program of Amerinet that was launched shortly after Amerinet was formed. We basically took the core concepts of pre-commitment and competitive bidding that were used on a smaller scale at many regional purchasing groups and adapted them to work on a national scale. While it was very labor intensive and time consuming to process committed-volume, competitive bids for over 1,000 hospitals, it was very effective in driving lower prices and better terms.

BOWEN: Probably that I never worked in a hospital or health system.

BOWEN: No, not necessarily. I think either background provides suitable knowledge and experience to be successful in the GPO business. People might also be surprised to know that early in my career, I was actually a licensed nursing home administrator and did some interim management activities for the long-term care company for which I worked.

BOWEN: Since you’ve taken away my best advice, it would probably be to never lose sight of the important role that you play in helping to lower the cost and improve the quality of healthcare delivery in this country. This is something that touches every individual in this country. Eventually, every member of your family will encounter the healthcare system in some way. Treat your job as though you are working to insure that your family member receives the best care possible.

Group purchasing has become big business. Huge financial transactions, thousands of customers, extensive technology and sophistication. Part of what we have lost in this industry is the sense of ‘ownership’ that individual hospitals used to have in ‘their’ GPO. When the local GPO awarded a contract, it was an achievement of all the individual hospital managers that guided and participated in the process together. I’d like to see hospitals regain this loyalty and pride of ownership, but it will require GPOs and GPO executives to go back to the roots of the business – building personal relationships within the hospital, establishing trust and confidence with hospital executives and business managers alike. HPN