A. James Tinker, President Emeritus, MercyCare Service Corporation, Cedar Rapids, IA

President emeritus of MercyCare Service Corporation, Mr. Tinker served as president and chief executive officer from 1982 to 2007. He has more than 40 years of experience in healthcare administration. Previously, he held executive positions at Mercy Medical Center and Mercy Care Management, Oakwood Hospital and Center for Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While he was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow to the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, he carried out congressional assignments with the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Health, Ways and Means Committee and the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Health, Labor and Public Welfare Committee. Mr. Tinker was a clinical instructor, preceptor and member of the admissions committee at the University of Wisconsin Program in Health Services and an adjunct lecturer at the University of Iowa. Awards and honors include Ship’s Wheel Award from the Iowa Hospital Association, Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa’s Business Hall of Fame Laureate and the Gold-Headed Cane Award from Mercy Health Systems.

He is a member of the American Hospital Association and has served on many boards, including as chairman of the Regional Policy Board 6 and as chair of the Council on Metropolitan Hospitals. Mr. Tinker is currently involved on numerous boards, including Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust, Cedar Rapids Symphony Foundation, Junior Achievement of Central Iowa, Mt. Mercy College, Priority One (Cedar Rapids’ economic development group), Rotary Club of Downtown Cedar Rapids and United Way of East Central Iowa. Mr. Tinker received a B.A. in liberal arts from the University of Michigan, an M.H.A. from the University of Michigan and was an administrative resident at Wilmington Medical Center in Wilmington, Delaware.