Steve Roling is stepping down from the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City. He's led the foundation since it was created in 2002
Since 2005, the foundation has invested more than $160 million in health-related projects and programs in Kansas City. The organization's goal: eliminating barriers and promote quality health for the uninsured and underserved.
In the second half of Monday's Up to Date, Steve Kraske talks with Roling (who serves on KCUR's Community Advisory Board) about Kansas City's health system and where he thinks health care is headed in the years to come.
Steve Roling was appointed President/CEO of the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City in December 2004. This foundation was created when Health MidWest sold its hospitals to HCA. Steve obtained both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Missouri in Columbia. Steve is married to his wife Judi who is a nurse practitioner and they have two grown daughters who live in the Kansas City area. Steve started his work career as resident director of a youth treatment center in Marshall, Missouri while he was still in college and graduate school. After graduation, Steve worked for MASW as a community organizer for over one year. He then became a legislative assistant to former United States Senator Tom Eagleton in Washington, D.C. For six years Steve worked with the Senator on human service issues. He then came back to Missouri and was a banker for four years and in 1985, he became Publisher of the Kansas City Business Journal for six years. In 1991, he joined the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and became the Senior Vice President of the foundation until 2002. In 2003, former Governor Bob Holden appointed Steve as the Director of the Missouri Department of Social Services. In that role he was responsible for a $6.2 billion budget with over 8,500 staff and 300 local offices located through the state. Currently, as President/CEO of the $472 Million Health Care Foundation, Steve works with a dedicated Board of Directors, and seventeen staff who are committed to improving the quality of health care in the region for the medically indigent and underserved.
