It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was supposed to go to graduate school, become a university professor and lead a quiet but distinguished academic life…

…but NO! My first wife actually expected me to get a real job after I completed my undergraduate degree, and thus began the 35-year saga that has been my life in the healthcare supply chain.

To paraphrase Ted Baxter from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, "It all started at a 365-bed hospital in Miami." From my earliest days as a unit manager covering the second and third floors of Baptist Hospital of Miami to my current position as director of materials for the Finley Hospital in Dubuque, there have been many interesting stops along the way, many interesting people to recall and many, many tall tales to tell — most of which are absolutely true.

If you are a baseball fan and are over 40 years old, you are doubtless familiar with the name Gaylord Perry. Perry is a Hall of Fame pitcher who is famous for two things — his well-documented penchant for adding foreign substances on the baseball, and his frequent movement from team to team. In reference to loading up the baseballs, Gaylord once said, "I reckon I tried everything on the old apple, but salt and pepper and chocolate sauce topping."

As homage to the multiple teams he played for, he had a special jersey made up for Old Timers’ games. It had the logos of the San Francisco Giants, Cleveland Indians, Texas Rangers, San Diego Padres, New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, Seattle Mariners and Kansas City Royals on it — all of his former teams, and for whom, amidst all the humor and self-deprecation — he managed to win 314 games and a Cy Young Award in both major leagues.

Unlike Gaylord, I don’t load up the baseball. But I am similar to him in the sense that I have been employed by many organizations and — despite my reputation for humor and self-deprecation — I’ve managed to perform pretty well at the highest level for many years, garnering more than my share of public acclaim.

So you can imagine that I was both surprised and honored when I was contacted by Healthcare Purchasing News to write a column each month beginning in January to help commemorate its 30th anniversary in 2007. Over the years I have had a half dozen or so articles published in HPN, so I was prepared to labor valiantly every month to produce something that approached a professional offering. But then I was given the directive to just tell stories about the people I’ve known and the events I have been involved in during my journey through this crazy industry.

Isn’t that the way it goes?

I set out to become Charles E. Housley and ended up becoming Andy Rooney…

…Stay Tuned! HPN