Medical Distribution Hall of Fame
For McKesson Medical-Surgical executive, actions speak louder than words
Paul Julian gets things done. He built McKesson Medical-Surgical into a nationwide distributor for the non-acute market. He did it with speed, efficiency, discipline, leadership and focus.
Julian was a key player in McKesson’s 1997 acquisition of General Medical, the 1998 acquisition of Red Line Healthcare (now McKesson Extended Care), the sale of its acute-care business to Owens & Minor in 2006, and its acquisition of PSS World Medical in 2013.
He also played a key role in strengthening and expanding McKesson’s presence in pharmaceutical distribution and operations, both in the United States and abroad.
Julian, who, in January 2018 retired as executive vice president and group president, Distribution Solutions, for McKesson Corp., will be inducted into the Medical Distribution Hall of Fame in April.
“He has brought tremendous discipline to our industry vis-à-vis the focus he has demanded within McKesson, which has set healthy bars within the marketplace,” says Stanton McComb, president, McKesson Medical-Surgical. “He reshaped the industry with dozens of massive acquisitions, e.g., US Oncology, PSS World Medical, Per-Se/RelayHealth, Celesio, to name only a few.”
Says Rick Frey, president, Moore Medical LLC, “Clearly, Paul was the driving force in developing and executing the strategy to be in the No. 1 market position in the alternate site markets. Not only did he drive the financial performance, he was responsible for successfully acquiring companies, attracting talent, and building and developing a team and a performance-based culture. The performance of the company and its people are Paul’s legacy.”
Confident, not cocky
Julian was born and raised in Boston. His father, Albert, was a junior-high and high-school teacher; his mother, Dorothy, a homemaker.
He graduated from Salem State University in Salem, Massachusetts, with a bachelor’s degree in education. After graduation he went to work for Faberge, selling the company’s shampoos and fragrances to drug stores, department stores, independents and mass merchandisers throughout New England. It was a great job for a 21-year-old kid out of school, he says. There was a company car, an expense account and even a salary. But he didn’t see himself building a career there.
Concluding that healthcare sales would be a good career choice, Julian went on some interviews and got a job with United States Surgical Corp. (now part of Medtronic), which, under the leadership of founder Leon Hirsch, had captured the U.S. market for surgical staplers. Roughly two years later, he joined IVAC Corp., then a division of Eli Lilly (and now part of Becton Dickinson), selling infusion pumps to the acute-care market.
When at U.S. Surgical, Julian had struck up a friendship with Elliot Brodsky, owner of Eastern Hospital Supply in Stoneham, Massachusetts. It was Brodsky who convinced him to leave IVAC and become sales manager for Eastern Scientific, which was Eastern’s non-hospital business. “I had people reporting to me, some who had a lot more experience in distribution than I did,” Julian recalls. “But people would tell you I always have had a high level of confidence. I wasn’t intimidated by the people, the job, the products. I went in and did the best I could. I stayed focused and tenacious. And it paid off.”
When Greensburg, Pennsylvania-based Stuart Medical acquired Eastern, Julian moved to Greensburg and ultimately became chief operating officer of Stuart. In 1994, Owens & Minor acquired Stuart, and Julian moved back East, to Boston, as senior vice president. In 1996, he joined McKesson in San Francisco, which was under the leadership of an old friend and fellow medical salesperson, John Hammergren.
A bigger footprint
“I went to San Francisco recognizing McKesson wanted to build its healthcare (non-retail) footprint,” he says. “And they had the balance sheet to do it. So John and I looked at various assets.”
Their first acquisition was Automated Healthcare, which manufactured automated pharmaceutical dispensing equipment for hospitals. The following year, in 1997, the company made a big leap into the medical market with the acquisition of Richmond, Virginia-based General Medical. Julian moved to Richmond to oversee General Medical (then called McKesson General Medical) for three years. More growth followed.
“I can’t even tell you how many acquisitions we did over the course of the years,” he says. They included Parks Inc, Atlantic Healthcare, Red Line Healthcare (now McKesson Extended Care), US Oncology and, in 2013, PSS World Medical.
“We bought companies with good people and strong customer bases, and we maintained a balance between McKesson people and those from the acquired companies,” he says. “When you’re trying to integrate two cultures, you need representation from both sides in order to create a new culture.”
Proof that the integration process worked well is the list of McKesson Medical-Surgical leaders who came from acquired companies, including Gary Keeler, president, sales and marketing (from Red Line); Eddie Dienes, president, primary care sales (from PSS); Brad Hilton, senior vice president, customer experience (from PSS); Joan Eliasek, president, extended care sales (from General Medical); Rick Frey and many others.
National vision
“General Medical was a regional medical-surgical distributor,” says Eliasek, who worked with or for Julian in various roles from the time of the General Medical acquisition. “Paul came in with a vision to create a leading national distributor. He used General Medical as a platform to build what we are today. He is responsible for much of the talent in our company – identifying them, bringing them in and training them to be great leaders.”
Says Frey, “Although I had heard of Paul years earlier, as we both worked in the healthcare distribution industry in New England, I first met him in 1996. At that time I was vice president of primary care with General Medical, and Paul was with McKesson Corporation. I was part of the General Medical due-diligence team presenting our respective markets to potential buyers of the company.
“The team had been in New York City presenting to a potential buyer when we were told to head to Phoenix to meet with two individuals from McKesson – Paul Julian and John Hammergren. That was my first experience of Paul Julian drilling down on every detail. Shortly afterward, McKesson acquired General Medical and named Paul Julian as president.
“One of Paul’s unique skills is to have the vision to understand what the customers’ needs will be in the future and build out the competencies to meet those needs. If you look not only around McKesson and its various companies, but into the healthcare industry, there are numerous people whom Paul hired or developed into the leaders they are today. I doubt you could find anyone who worked directly for Paul that doesn’t feel he made significant contributions to their professional growth.”
Says McComb, “Paul has helped broker healthy forms of collaboration and partnership even between competitors. He has the courage to promote and ask for value where value has been delivered. And he has done a lot to make sure we are not just box movers or commodity brokers, both with our collective customers and manufacturing partners.
“He has also envisioned and initiated multiple major industry shifts, e.g., shift to fee-for-service; investment in Rx technologies; recommitment and reinvigoration of independent pharmacy programs, like Health Mart (a franchise program for independent pharmacies); and massive investments in generic pharmaceuticals and private-label medical/surgical supplies.
“He brought and promoted Six Sigma to McKesson, which reflects his drive around operational excellence and which sparked healthy continuous improvement across the industry.”
Don’t stop now
“The healthcare industry is going to continue to evolve,” says Julian, noting recent merger announcements involving CVS and Aetna, UnitedHealth and DaVita, Dignity Health and Catholic Health Initiatives, and others. “Even as you look back over the past 20 years, you’ve seen big acquisitions. And due to cost pressures and evolving patient needs, companies are going to continue to evolve and expand their offerings.
“Scale matters, footprint matters, control matters. I don’t think you’ve seen the end of this.”
Retired at age 62, Julian has options to consider. Few in the industry would be surprised if his next stop had something to do with healthcare. If so, he’s certain to bring with him enthusiasm, discipline and focus.
“The secret sauce to me was this: I always focused on doing a good job at the job I had; I wasn’t focused on the next one,” he says. “I learned everything I could learn and was the best I could be, all the time. I would also say I had a very strong work ethic. And because of that focus, another opportunity always emerged.”
When asked what people who worked for him would say about his management style, Julian believes they might say this: “Tough, fair, a good listener; but he insists that you be prepared when you are in a meeting with him. And if you don’t know something, tell him you don’t know it, and then go find the answer.”
No doubt Julian is proud of his role in building McKesson Corp. to what it is today. But he seems especially satisfied with the role he has played in peoples’ lives.
“I’m loyal,” he says. “Most people who worked for me have done very well.”
Critical lessons
McKesson Medical-Surgical President Stanton McComb met Paul Julian in 2002 and started working directly for him around 2005. “I reported to Paul and helped him and McKesson grow our pharmacy systems and medical-surgical businesses over a 12-year period,” he says.
During that time, Julian taught McComb and 70,000-plus other people at McKesson some critical lessons, he says, including these:
- When we build strategies and programs, we really have to understand our Customers and put their practical needs
- We have to continuously work towards levels of Operational Excellence. We have to pick, pack, and ship with the highest levels of quality and value every time, so that we can earn the right to keep our customers’ business AND talk about value-added programs.
- A sincere results orientation and accountability. With Paul, you had better hit your numbers!
- The importance of building great teams, developing people, and coaching people and teams towards ever-higher levels of performance and achievement.
McComb says he learned something else about Julian.
“Paul is famous for demanding very fast and short business dinners,” he says. “If the dinner does not wrap up, he will wrap it up for you. Likewise, he is famous for demanding short presentations. Even if you have one slide in your presentation, his advice would still be ‘Less is More.’”
Honor roll
Repertoire launched the Medical Distribution Hall of Fame in 2001. Read their stories at www.repertoiremag.com
2001
- George Blowers, Welch Allyn
- Jim Stover (William T. Stover), National Distribution & Contracting
- DeWight Titus, F.D. Titus & Sons
2002
- Bob Barnes, Durr-Fillauer
- Karl Bays, American Hospital Supply
- Pat Kelly, PSS
- Ron Stephenson, Indiana University
2003
- John McGuire Sr., Colonial Hospital Supply
- Haworth Parks, Parks Inc.
2004
- Bill McKnight, McKnight Medical Communications
- George Ransdell, Ransdell Surgical
2005
- Max Goodloe, General Medical
2006
- Gil Minor III, Owens & Minor
2007
- Elliot Werber, Kendall Corp., F. D. Titus & Sons, Bergen Brunswig
2008
- Bill and Lew Allyn, Welch Allyn
2009
- John Sasen, PSS
2010
- John Moran, Welch Allyn
2011
- Scott Fanning and Don Kitzmiller, Midmark Corp.
2012
- Ted Almon, Claflin Co.
- Cindy Juhas, Hospital Associates.
2013
- Rob Saron, Bovie Medical Corp.
2014
- Bill McLaughlin, IMCO
- Yates Farris, IMCO
2015
- Brian Taylor, Medical Distribution Solutions Inc.
2016
- Brad Connett, Henry Schein Medical
2017
- Dick Moorman, Midmark
- Mike Carver, GOJO Industries
- Tony Melaro, Welch Allyn
2018
- Paul Julian, McKesson Corp.