Advisory Board

John Bardis founded MedAssets, a leading healthcare performance improvement company, in 1999. He served for 15 years as its chairman, president and chief executive officer – and as chairman and CEO until he retired in 2015. Mr. Bardis led the company through tremendous growth, both leading up to and following MedAssets’ successful initial public offering in 2007. 

Mr. Bardis was named Assistant Secretary for Administration at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2017 and served in that role until 2018. Prior to founding MedAssets, Mr. Bardis held various senior management positions in the healthcare industry and worked with American Hospital Supply, Baxter International, Kinetic Concepts and TheraTx, Inc.

In 1995, he was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. magazine, and in 2012, he received recognition from Ernst & Young as the Technology Entrepreneur of the Year in the Southeast. Mr. Bardis also has been recognized by Modern Healthcare as one of the “Top 100 Most Influential Leaders in Healthcare” for four consecutive years (2011- 2014). Additionally, Becker’s Healthcare awarded him its annual Healthcare Leadership Award in 2013, naming him one of the top 30 leaders in healthcare.

Mr. Bardis is the founder and chairman of Hire Heroes U.S.A., the largest and most successful non-profit veteran employment and training organization in the United States. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Arizona.

Jeb Bush is the 43rd governor of the State of Florida, serving from 1999 through 2007. He was the third Republican elected to the state’s highest office and the first Republican in the state’s history to be reelected. He was most recently a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. 

Governor Bush remained true to his conservative principles throughout his two terms in office – cutting nearly $20 billion in taxes, vetoing more than $2.3 billion in earmarks and reducing the state government workforce by more than 13,000. His limited government approach helped unleash one of the most robust and dynamic economies in the nation, creating 1.3 million net new jobs and improving the state’s credit ratings, including achieving the first ever triple-A bond rating for Florida.

During his two terms, Governor Bush championed major reform of government, in areas ranging from health care and environmental protection to civil service and tax reform. His top priority was the overhaul of the state’s failing education system. Under Governor Bush’s leadership, Florida established a bold accountability system in public schools and created the most ambitious school choice programs in the nation. Today, Florida remains a national leader in education and is one of the only states in the nation to significantly narrow the achievement gap.

Governor Bush is also known for his leadership during two unprecedented back-to-back hurricane seasons, which brought eight hurricanes and four tropical storms to the state of Florida in less than two years. To protect the state from loss of life and damage caused by catastrophic events, such as hurricanes, he worked tirelessly to improve the state’s ability to respond quickly and compassionately during emergencies, while also instilling a “culture of preparedness” in the state’s citizenry.

Governor Bush previously served as a Presidential Professor of Practice at University of Pennsylvania. He also served as a visiting professor and fellow at Harvard University, an executive professor at Texas A&M University, and has been awarded several honorary doctorates from collegiate institutions across the country. Governor Bush has been recognized for his contributions to public policy by national organizations, including the Manhattan Institute, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Jack Kemp Foundation. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Governor Bush currently serves as Chairman of Finback Investments Partners LLC and Dock Square Capital LLC, both merchant banks headquartered in Coral Gables. Governor Bush maintains his passion for improving the quality of education for students across the country by serving as the Chairman of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a national nonprofit education reform organization he founded to transform education in America. He has written three books, Profiles in Character; Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution; and Reply All: A Governor’s Story 1999-2007.

Charles R. Evans is president of International Health Services Group (IHSG) and senior advisor at Jackson Healthcare. The mission of IHSG – a social enterprise he founded in 2007 – is to support health services development in underserved areas of the world by working with established organizations to supplement their capabilities in healthcare management and development as they work to achieve their broader goals. Current projects are located in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. IHSG also founded and supports the leadership corps for management capacity building and is active in encouraging international hospital partnerships between U.S. hospitals and those in economically developing countries.

In addition to serving on Jackson Healthcare’s advisory board, Mr. Evans holds corporate board positions with MiMedx Group, WellStreet Urgent Care and Arena, as well as nonprofit board positions with FaithBridge Foster Care and American International Health Alliance. He also is a special advisor to the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) on international affairs and an honorary member of the International Hospital Federation.

In 2012, Mr. Evans attained the Board Leadership Fellow credential of the National Association of Corporate Directors. He is a Fellow in the ACHE; served as a governor of the college from 2004-2007 and chairman officer from 2008-2011; and was the recipient of the 2014 ACHE Gold Medal Award, the highest honor the organization bestows. 

Mr. Evans’ other professional experiences include work with Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), where he managed the Mid-America and Southeast divisions, later becoming president of HCA’s Eastern Group. Prior to that, he served in executive positions at Memorial Medical Center of Jacksonville, Florida and Community Hospitals in Indianapolis, Indiana.

He received an undergraduate degree from West Virginia Wesleyan College, a Master of Arts from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Indiana University.

William H. Franklin serves as vice chairman of the advisory board at Jackson Healthcare. In addition to board responsibilities, he is active in corporate development, providing counsel on acquisition candidates and business plans; researching opportunities for de novo businesses, and developing their models and plans; and monitoring industry trends. He also collaborates and consults with the presidents and management teams that comprise the Jackson Healthcare family of companies, supporting the refinement and adaption of business models and strategies to evolving market conditions, advising on key initiatives, and mentoring and teaching management development courses.

Dr. Franklin attended Tufts University, George Washington University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Georgia State University. He holds two degrees in engineering, an MBA and a Ph.D. His professional career began at Scientific-Atlanta, where he held positions in microwave engineering, along with roles that spanned business functions across the organization.

As a tenured faculty member in the College of Business Administration of Georgia State University, Dr. Franklin taught graduate courses in strategy and entrepreneurship. He also taught in the university’s Small Business Development Center and developed most of the courses and outreach to the Atlanta small business community.

Dr. Franklin and Rick Jackson – founder, chief executive officer and chairman of the board at Jackson Healthcare – met at Georgia State University and have been business associates since 1979. 

Reynold J. Jennings is an award-winning hospital executive with 41 years of experience in both not-for-profit and for-profit hospital systems. After corporate retirement in 2016, he now provides community “give back” services and public policy recommendations through his private company, Jennings Health Group LLC.  

Mr. Jennings currently serves as co-chair of Kennesaw State University’s capital campaign for the WellStar College of Health and Human Services. He also serves as a preceptor for KSU master’s degree candidates in the Department of Exercise Science. He is a trustee at the United Methodist Church of Marietta for both the church and its foundation, and currently advises on public health guidelines for COVID-19 mitigation. Mr. Jennings also provides strategy advice to several companies with health insurance, clinical care organization and revenue cycle solution products.

Mr. Jennings has had extensive experience as a hands-on hospital operating executive for over 30 years. From 2011-2016, he was president and chief executive officer of WellStar Health System, a health system with five hospitals, more than 12,000 employees and 1,126 medical staff members. There, he led the acquisition of the five Tenet Healthcare Atlanta facilities to make WellStar the largest healthcare system in Georgia and the third largest in the Southeastern U.S.

Prior to WellStar, Mr. Jennings served in vice chairman and chief operating officer roles with Tenet Healthcare Corporation. As Tenet’s COO, he was responsible for operational oversight of its 69 core acute care hospitals and other facilities in 13 states. He began his healthcare career at Hamilton Medical Center in Dalton, Georgia as a pharmacist, rising to the position of senior vice president and COO. From 1983-1991, he was CEO of a number of acute care hospitals, including Doctors Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Clearwater Community Hospital in Clearwater, Florida, and Palms of Pasadena Hospital, a St. Petersburg, Florida facility. In 1991, he was promoted to SVP with responsibility for National Medical Enterprises’ acute care hospitals in Texas, Missouri and West Florida, later joining Ramsay Health Care as COO and eventually becoming CEO. After re-joining Tenet Healthcare in 1997, he became SVP of the Gulf States Region and in 2004 became COO.

Mr. Jennings is a Life Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and served as a board member and officer of the American Federation of Hospitals. He has a Master of Science Degree in Business Administration from the University of South Carolina at Columbia and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Pharmacy from the University of Georgia.

Dr. Thomas E. Price, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon, served as the 23rd U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and is a former Member of Congress. 

After receiving both his bachelor’s and M.D. degrees from the University of Michigan, he completed his general surgery internship and orthopedic surgery residency at Emory University. Following his training, Dr. Price – a third generation physician – began a solo medical practice in Atlanta. That practice, where he served as chairman of the board, grew to be one of the largest, non-academic orthopedic practices in the country. During his more than two decades as a practicing physician, he served as medical director of the orthopedic clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital, as well as an assistant professor at Emory University School of Medicine.

Dr. Price was elected to four terms in the Georgia State Senate, eventually serving as Senate Minority Whip, and later, as the first Republican Senate Majority Leader in the history of Georgia. He also served as the U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District from 2005-2017. During his congressional career, Dr. Price served in various leadership roles, including Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee and Chairman of the Republican Study Committee.