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8A Senior Provost and Chief Executive Officer M LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT Michael Harter | Touro University Nevada ichael Harter has achieved some great things for the state of Ne- vada – but don't get the idea that there aren't even more great achievements still to come. Having served as the inaugural Dean of Students and Vice President for Administration before becoming CEO, Harter was part of the founding team for Touro University Nevada. As a branch campus of Touro University Califor- nia, Touro of Nevada has won acclaim as an outstanding health science center. Its campus consists of two colleges: the College of Osteopathic Medicine and the College of Health and Human Services. In his current role, Harter serves as both the administrative and academic head of the Nevada and northern California campuses of Touro University. He oversees two of the fastest-growing medical schools in the western United States, as well as allied health science and education programs with a current total enrollment of more than 3,000 students. Before joining Touro in 2004, Harter served as Vice Dean of the University of Nevada School of Medicine, where he was President of the Practice Cor- poration and managed both undergraduate and graduate medical education programs. He has more than three decades of experience in higher educa- tion, including 14 years as dean and professor. As founding Executive Director of Family Development Programs Inc. of Ohio, he is also experienced in the development and operation of primary care centers and services to children and families. Harter's extensive record of research, publication and instruction has in- cluded work in health care finance, health planning, contemporary issues in healthcare and health aspects of aging. He has also been a devoted advocate LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT for a variety of community service organizations, including positions with the Board of Directors of the United Way Capital Region in California; the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board serving Ohio's Athens, Hocking and Vinton Counties; and the Southern Nevada Area Health Education Center. Harter recounts that he arrived in Nevada in two stages. His wife, Dr. Carol Harter, arrived in 1995 to take over as President of UNLV, where she would serve for 11 years. She was UNLV's seventh president, having previously served as the 11th president of SUNY Geneseo. She is the current Executive Director of UNLV's Black Mountain Institute. "I joined her in 2000," he recalls, "although I was here a lot between 1995 and 2000." He started as Touro's vice president in 2004, and became CEO in January 2007. In terms of his role as Chief Executive Officer, Harter reflects, "My wife has been a mentor. In communicating with her as she was a president for 17 years I learned an awful lot about managing in higher education. I found that having discussed with her many issues and dilemmas that she faced as a president helped me function as a CEO in a university setting." He also received some invaluable mentoring from individuals with who he has worked closely with. Dr. Jay Sexter, for example, was the initial plan- ner of Touro University Nevada. "He was instrumental in bringing it to this community, and was very helpful to me. I had started health care education programs in the past within established universities, but I had never created an entire campus." Harter is adamant that receiving a lifetime achievement award should not mean that his focus is on the past. "Another major goal that we had at the outset was to provide healthcare services in selected areas of acute need in the state," he relates. "We cre- ated, for example, a center for autism and developmental disabilities which is the only comprehensive center of its kind in the state. We are also at this time planning a center for active aging, which is a response to the needs of a population of older adults and retirees." In preparation for that center, he has helped assemble a significant contingent of and geriatricians and rheu- matologists as faculty members. Besides the medical services that the older adult population has begun to receive, and which will be expanded in the new center for active aging, Harter adds, "we're also going to have physical and occupational therapy and audiology at that center. This will be our next major goal for Touro University Nevada." One of the observations that Harter made many years ago while managing Family Development Programs Inc. of Ohio was that patients, and children es- pecially, seem to profit greatly as a result of the team diagnosis and therapy. "I believe that in order for all of the healthcare disciplines to work together it's important that education programs provide opportunities for physicians, nurses, occupational therapist, physical therapists and physician assistants all to learn what the others do," Harter says. "I tried to engender that same perspective wherever I've been as an educator. At Touro we're just now begin- ning to make strides in that area." —By Howard Riell President and Owner | Matt Smith Physical Therapy N ot long after graduating from high school, Matt Smith experienced a turning point. His best friend, who'd been athlete of the year, was hit by a car and paralyzed. Spending time with him, trying to help, showed Smith his life direction: helping others. Today, he not only practices as a physical therapist. Since opening his first clinic in 2001, he's owned and operated his own establishment – 14 facilities in the Las Vegas area, employing 145 people. He expects to open two more locations by the end of the year. And his story runs deeper. Through his clinics, he gives his patients and employees, he said, "to pon- der the plight of others." "The state of Nevada is number 48 out of 50 in terms of giving," he ex- plained. "We can give people the opportunity to change that. It enriches oth- ers, but it enriches us tenfold. People who give and volunteer live longer and happier lives. Giving back will never fail you." In fact, his practice has been a sort of alchemist's boiling pot, in which patients, employees, and Smith's initial drive to help have all transformed one another, and the community. For example, he had a discussion with a patient one day about combating childhood obesity, and the grassroots effort to get kids to exercise. It's a cause that's still close to his heart. COMMUNITY OUTREACH Matt Smith, PT COMMUNITY OUTREACH But the patient introduced him to another cause: juvenile diabetes, and the need to fund research and a cure. Although no one in his family suffers from the disease, he now serves as the vice president of fundraising for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Nevada Chapter. According to Smith, the clinics run a fundraiser every quarter, benefiting causes ranging from Child Haven and Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foun- dation of Nevada to St. Jude's Ranch for Children and the Special Olympics. Collecting Christmas gifts for kids in need, school supplies, and shoes and jackets for the cool months have all been on the agenda. Lessons in philanthropy permeate the physical therapy practice. Walk into one of the clinics, and it's common to see a bin filled with food donations for Three Square Food Bank. According to Smith, the food items keep coming in even after the bins are brimming. The company does its annual outreach planning each November, choosing which causes to support in the coming year. But Smith also encourages em- ployees at each clinic to get together and initiate their own outreach. Moreover, he makes a point of reaching out and personally meeting the bright, at-risk kids who receive scholarships to pursue a career in health care, with the help of his financial backing. The clinics also offer a summer work program and internships – added opportunity for kids who have much to con- tribute but need a little help getting there. The scholarships now specifically require recipients to pursue a four-year degree at UNLV, so that some of Las Vegas' best resources will stay here. If there was anything he could offer these young people, Smith said, "It would be an education. They have all the attributes to be a spectacular stu- dent, but no means to go to school." Meeting his scholarship recipients has, in itself, been an education. He re- members the "young lady" whose mother worked full-time. The girl attended school full-time and worked at Starbucks more than 20 hours every week to help pay the family bills. There was also the boy who came to work at one of the clinics, riding his bike in 110-degree weather. Smith has created bridges from those whose potential is often overlooked, to employees, to Las Vegas VIPs in sports, entertainment, the casino world, and business – people who are also clinic patients. There was a time when one of those patients, casino mogul William Ben- nett, invited him into the business of gaming. Smith eventually spent a little more than a year as president/general manager in the late 1990s of the now- closed Sahara hotel-casino. But the attraction of helping others won out over the pull of gaming. "I missed health care," he said. —By Gina Rose DiGiovanna