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Today's Featured Biography

 
Phillip Vinyard

Just turned 51 last week, so it's time for an update.

After graduating I went to CMSU and got a degree in Accounting in 1978. I had been working at Baptist Memorial Hospital in some fashion since I was 13 and stayed on there a few more years as an accountant. Moved to Columbia Missouri and got my Master’s in Hospital Administration and a Master’s in Business Administration in 1982. I worked for a while in finance at the University Hospital, did a short stint consulting with Ernst & Whinney in KC, worked in administration at Yuma Regional Medical Center in Yuma Arizona, then in administration at Baystate Health Systems in Springfield, Massachusetts. I hit a point where I really didn’t like health care finance any more and decided to do something I had always wanted to do: go to theological seminary. I moved to Boston in 1991 and started at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Turned out to be a better idea than I anticipated: I met my wife Julia there and we were married in 1992. We had our daughter, Amy, in 1993 and Julia dropped out of seminary to take care of her. During seminary I worked as the CFO of a mental health agency and later the CFO of a healthcare publishing company. I completed my Master’s of Divinity in 1996 and stayed on at the publishing company awaiting further direction. In 1997 my folks called and asked us if we would move to Nevada Missouri to help them with the family farm supply store (they took it over from my grandfather after I finished undergrad). We moved to Nevada and I did an eight year stint in retail.

We were very active in the community there and I even pastored a church that we helped plant in Nevada. I also served a couple of terms on the hospital board of directors and kept my finger in the whole healthcare management world. We finally hit a point where we wanted to take the store in a direction that the folks didn’t want to and we never could work out a succession plan, so I put my resume out and landed a job back in hospital administration, but thankfully not in the financial part.

We moved to Columbia Missouri in March 2005 and I am now Practice Manager for several clinics in the Department of Family & Community Medicine at the University of Missouri Hospital and Clinics. I am having a blast and love every minute of my job and every minute of living in Columbia. Amy is in 8th grade in junior high school and loves animals and science. She has announced that she wants to be a doctor, and we're glad about that since she'll be able to afford putting us in a nice nursing home. Julia is working for the Columbia school system in the adult education program. We’re members of Woodcrest Chapel—a cutting edge style church and Julia and I are both helping out teaching some bible studies, and I also help in tech running cameras, stage managing, and directing some of the services.

I'm still working at becoming the best 51-year-old mandolin player in Boone County. Fortunately, there's not much competition. I play in a weekly bluegrass "slow jam" session, plus show up here and there at a real bluegrass jam on Sunday afternoons at a bar in McBaine. This year, I've started playing for the monthly square dance in Hallsville--way more fun than it ought to be. My wife still thinks I've lost my mind, switching from all classical to bluegrass. I claim I'm just getting in touch with my inner hick; which she then claims is probably not all that far in. I'd love to jam with any of my old RHS classmates if any of you have ventured over into bluegrass.

Don't forget to look me up when you're in Columbia. A lot of you have kids in school here now--let me know if I can do anything for them. I'm always willing to fill in as a temporary Dad.

And I also want to put in a plug for showing up for some of the get togethers. I made it in for the party for Karen and had a blast. Everyone was fun, but it was particularly nice to be around Sandy Keys, Karen Lacy, and Mark Bishop--I think we've known each other since we were 5 or 6. The older I get the more I appreciate my long term friends. Make the extra effort and try to show up for some of these--I'ts worth it!

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