PULLMAN, Wash. The 17th annual Walton Lecture will be given by Robert V. O’Brien Jr., executive vice president of the Health Plan Division of Group Health Cooperative, at 5 p.m. on Oct. 12 in CUE 203. O’Brien’s lecture is titled “The Great Health Care Debate,” and comes at a time when no issue has received greater attention. O’Brien will field questions from the audience at the end of his presentation. The lecture is presented by the Washington State University College of Business Department of Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate.
O’Brien is responsible for Group Health’s product research and management, marketing, sales and account management, network service and care management, and health plan administration and operations. He joined Group Health in 2008 from Mercer, a global consulting subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan, and led Mercer’s health and benefits consulting business in the U.S. for a decade and for the Americas since 2004. O’Brien is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University and earned his law degree from the University of Maine, where he served as the Articles Editor of the Maine Law Review. Prior to joining Mercer, he taught health care finance and insurance as an adjunct professor at Lewis and Clark College’s Northwestern School of Law.
O’Brien serves of the Board of Directors of the Seattle Sports Commission, the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, and the Puget Sound Health Care Alliance. He is an active member of The Oregon Bar, The American Bar Association, the American Health Lawyers Association, and the National Business Group on Health.
Founded in 1947, Group Health Cooperative is one the nation’s largest consumer-governed, nonprofit, health care systems. Group Health covers over 600,000 people in Washington and Northern Idaho. The organization employs over 9,000 and generated operating revenues of $2.8 billion in 2008. Some of Group Health’s major group accounts include Boeing, the City of Seattle, King County, Microsoft, Nordstrom’s, Puget Sound Energy, the Seattle School District, Spokane County, US Bank, Verizon, and Wells Fargo.
Endowed through a donation from the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of Washington, the Walton Lecture annually brings to campus a prominent leader in the field of risk management and insurance. For more information about the Walton Lecture, contact Mike McNamara at mjmcnam@wsu.edu or 509-335-5632.
The WSU College of Business spans the four campuses of WSU with the largest campus in Pullman and urban campuses located in Spokane, Vancouver and the Tri-Cities area. The college conducts scholarly and applied research, and offers degree programs in a variety of business disciplines, and in hospitality business management, supplementing face-to-face offerings through innovative online learning and international programs. For more information, visit the college’s Web site at https://www.business.wsu.edu.
