Druggist didn't come home from hospital.

• Author: Roush, Chris
• Position: PEOPLE - Column

Tim Rice and his wife planned to stay in Greensboro only three years. He had taken a job in 1978 as a pharmacist at Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, and they wanted to return to Washington state, where they both grew up.

He's still in Greensboro, but now he's president and CEO of the five-hospital Moses Cone Health System. He was promoted in August after three years as chief operating officer, replacing Dennis Barry, who retired after 25 years in the top job. The system's annual budget is $575 million.

Moses Cone opened in 1953, built with money from the estate of its namesake, who founded denim maker Cone Mills in 1891 with his brother, Ceasar Cone. It merged in 1997 with Wesley Long Community Hospital in Greensboro.

Rice's job is to make operations more efficient at a time when insurers and government insurance plans aren't raising reimbursements. "It's been four years since we've had a state Medicaid increase, and yet costs have increased dramatically." He also is leading efforts to address the system's rising costs and expansion plans. With more than 7,000 workers, it's Greensboro's largest private employer.

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Rice, 50, grew up on a 600-acre wheat and cattle ranch in Colville, Wash., near the Idaho border. He earned a pharmacy degree from Washington State University in Pullman in 1977.

He liked working at a hospital more than at a retail pharmacy because he could interact with other medical workers. He met some pharmacists from Moses Cone Hospital at a convention in Atlanta in 1978. They had an opening. "The pharmacists were really involved with the medical staff and making decisions about patient...