Health Care Hall of Fame Past Inductees

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Inducted in 2012

Howard Berman served six years as a senior director and vice president of the pre-merger Blue Cross Association, eight years as group vice president of the American Hospital Association, and 18 years as president and CEO of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield affiliate in Rochester, N.Y., before he retired in 2003. But Berman says he never had any particular aspirations for a fancy job title. “What I wanted to do was make a difference, and the difference I wanted to make was to make the quality of life better in our communities," he said. "Later, much later, I recognized that one of the ways for me to do that was to become a chief executive because then you had the ability to marshal all these resources. Becoming a chief executive was the price I had to pay to have that opportunity.”