James D. Shelton, Chairman of the Board, LHP Hospital Group, Inc., Plano, TX

Early in his career, Mr. Shelton served as a hospital administrator in Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina, Iowa, Missouri and Louisiana. In 1986, he began working with multiple hospitals as regional vice president of National Medical Enterprises (NME). While at NME, he took on greater responsibility as senior vice president and executive vice president of the company.

In 1993, Mr. Shelton became president of the Central Group of Columbia/HCA where he had responsibility for 107 hospitals and 45 ambulatory surgery centers. In 1998, he reached an agreement with HCA to acquire a group of hospitals and form a new company, Triad Hospitals, Inc. (Triad), where Mr. Shelton served as chairman and CEO of this organization until it was sold in July 2007. Under his leadership, Triad grew to become the third largest healthcare provider in the U.S.

During his thirty-year tenure in healthcare, Mr. Shelton served on the Board of the Federation of American Hospitals for ten years (1991 – 2001) and as its chairman in 1999. He served a three-year term on the Board of the American Hospital Association (2004 – 2006), during which he was a member of the executive committee. From 2001 through 2006 and again in 2008, he was recognized by Modern Healthcare as one of the 100 most influential people in healthcare in America.

In addition to his role on the board of directors of LHP, Mr. Shelton currently serves on the boards of two publicly traded companies—Omnicare, Inc. (NYSE: OCR), and Ventas (NYSE: VTR). He also serves on the boards of three non-profit organizations: Health Coverage Foundation, a group looking to promote private solutions for the medically uninsured in America; The Henry’s Fork Foundation, Inc., an organization formed to protect the unique qualities of the Henry’s Fork watershed in eastern Idaho; and the Wake Forest University Health Sciences Center. He is also the board chairman of the Four Corners Global Outreach project, which is working to build a medical clinic in Costa Rica. Additionally, Mr. Shelton serves as a senior advisor to CCMP, a private equity firm in New York.

A native of Shreveport, Louisiana, Mr. Shelton received his B.A. in history from LSU in 1975 and an M.S. from the Graduate School of Public Administration (now the Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs) at the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1977. In 2005, he was inducted into the LSU Alumni Hall of Distinction.