Some Texas Health Resources executives are reaching for the sky as they implement their 10-year strategic plan begun in 2007.
Just a few years after they started referring to the plan as the climb up “Transformation Mountain,” several executives at the Arlington-based system decided to do just that. Since then, they've trekked 19,336 feet up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, 14,410 feet up Mount Rainier in Washington state and 15,554 feet up Mount Elbrus in Russia.
“Our strategic metaphor is 'Climbing Transformation Mountain,' ” said Dr. Elizabeth Ransom, zone clinical leader for Texas Health Resources. “A few of us decided to take that literally.”
The executives, all climbing novices and led by THR Chief Information Officer Ed Marx, made the first climb up Longs Peak in Colorado in 2010. This year they are planning a return to Tanzania to work at a medical clinic in a nearby Masai village that they opened after climbing Kilimanjaro in 2011.
Their goal is to climb six of the “seven summits”—the highest peaks on each continent. Next up is Aconcagua in Argentina within the next year.
Follow Outliers on Twitter: @MHOutliers
Send us a letter
Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.
