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G. HENRY LESLIE
Past Chairman
Board of Trustees
Pitt County Memorial Hospital

April 19, 2000

Interviewer: Marion Blackburn

Marion Blackburn: Mr. Leslie, tell me a little bit about how you became involved with Pitt County Memorial Hospital.

Harry Leslie: Well, I moved to Greenville, North Carolina permanently in the middle of July in 1970 as Plant Manager of Burroughs Wellcome and of course, Burroughs Wellcome has a name of being a fine corporate citizen and certainly they were interested in hospitals and medical schools, etc., and so somehow or other I guess the powers that be in the hospital administration and the Board found out that this was the case with Burroughs Wellcome and at that time, that fall, they had a vote in regard to building a new hospital.

Marion Blackburn: The commissioners had a vote?

Harry Leslie: Well, the Pitt County citizens voted to approve a bond issue for the new hospital and I think there were obligation bonds and, if I remember right, they were about $9 million and this to be financed, of course, by Pitt County. They had in their mind to increase their hospital from 107 beds to hopefully, 300 beds. This was approved at election time but this was a highly inflationary period of time too and by the time they were ready to build I think there were $2 million plus short of the estimates to build a hospital to meet their needs. I do not recall fully just how they were able to get the additional money but I know that the hospital Board and probably a delegation of the county commissioners went to Washington to get a special loan. This was approved so you had $11 million plus to work with. It proceeded and two towers went up and I am sure that it took a period of time. We moved from the old hospital and while we had 107 beds, some of the beds were in the aisles. There was just no room. They were bulging at the seams at that time. The move was made in the spring of 1977. It was one weekend, I remember distinctly because I had business the following week in London, England, and I left on the Saturday and they moved all the patients the following Saturday and Sunday over to the new hospital.

Marion Blackburn: Were you already on the Board at this time?

Harry Leslie: No. When the new hospital went up there was insufficient funds to furnish the new beds going from 107 to say 300 in the two towers and I had an impression that southern people were laid back and didn't move too quickly. But I found out very soon that it was not the case at all. I was invited to a dinner one night and I think that Senator Ed Warren was Chairman of the Board at that time at the hospital and we had a real nice dinner and right after that he mentioned that they were short a half million dollars and they would need at least that to furnish the beds and the rooms in the new hospital. He said they were planning to set up what they referred to as the Gifts Committee which was part of the hospital and all the records would be kept in a journal at the hospital. I ended up within ten minutes as being Chairman of that and a friend of mine by the name of Joe Pou was Vice Chairman and Betty Speir, who is still a very active lady in this community, especially in education, she was Secretary and Bill Glidewell was Treasurer.

Well, Marion, over a period of time with the help of great philanthropists like Dr. Ray Minges, and others who helped me with an awful lot of this, we raised over $500,000 and accomplished that so I guess they learned how I had some affinity for picking pockets.

Marion Blackburn: That can be a very valuable skill.

Harry Leslie: In 1976 I was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Pitt County Memorial Hospital. I think your term of office was from March 1 for a full year. I think that was the period of time for the appointment. They were three-year appointments; however, I learned from one very active citizen around the area here that he spoke to someone on the Board of Governors at the Board of Governors in Raleigh and that there was an open space for two years. An individual who had been on the Board had resigned and left and so I was appointed to that two year space. Then I had two three-year spaces that I could serve thereafter. I ended up eight years on the Board rather than being just two three-year terms. It is different than that altogether now. You can serve up to ten years now, I believe.

Marion Blackburn: So you served on the Board for two years and then you said another space came open?

Harry Leslie: No, not came open, I at first filled a space and it wasn't really an appointment, I was appointed to fill this space. Then the appointment came from Raleigh. It was 1975 when they were planning a medical school here. It was a one-year medical school at that time and I was an appointee from the Board of Governors on this Board here because of the Affiliation Agreement with the state that this would be a teaching hospital. The county commissioners did not appoint me, I was appointed by the Board of Governors.

Marion Blackburn: That was a very difficult time from what I understand.

Harry Leslie: Well, we will get into that a little bit later but the agreement was that forty percent of the Board members were to be appointed by the state Board of Governors and the balance by the Pitt County Commissioners at that time. It is different altogether now since privatization Committees had to be set up with so many members of the Board appointed by the Board of Governors and so many appointed by the County Commissioners and they all had to be balanced.

Marion Blackburn: So, from filling a seat that became empty, from there you were appointed to two more three-year terms by the Board of Governors?

Harry Leslie: Yes, and of course in the agreement, the county commissioners had to agree with their appointments. The first year was learning a bit about running a hospital and the second year Mr. Kenneth Dews was Chairman of the Board and I don't know if he asked for me or not but I ended as Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees in 1977.

Marion Blackburn: And that was when the four-year medical school opened and the hospital had already been in its new building?

Harry Leslie: No, in 1975 it had only been a one-year medical school at that time. Dr. Doug Privette was one of the young one-year students and then he had to go to UNC to finish his med school. Of course, he came back here as a cardiologist. It was 1975 when the Affiliation Agreement, I am pretty sure it was 1975, that was good for twenty years and I think it was 1995 that we reviewed it again and changed it a little bit.

Marion Blackburn: That was a tremendous growing period.

Harry Leslie: One other thing, when the Affiliation Agreement was signed and sealed and delivered that Pitt County Memorial Hospital was going to be a teaching hospital, then rather than build another hospital, the agreement was that they would finance a third tower to the tune of $10 million. The funds would come from the state.

Marion Blackburn: That was the North Tower?

Harry Leslie: No, that was the West Tower initially but they have renamed them all again. The North Tower now is the Heart Center. There are three towers. The West Tower was the third tower. I am trying to think when it was built because I was on the Board when the $10 million that was talked about but never funded, I think that within the funding of the state that they became hard-pressed for money and that was taken away from us so we didn't have that third tower. That is when we went through all this trauma.

Marion Blackburn: How did everybody eventually come up with the funds for that third tower?

Harry Leslie: Well, excuse the expression but they were Indian givers just for a short period of time, maybe a couple of years. When they took funds from us and we couldn't build a third tower and we knew what kind of problem we were going to have because of the patient load, we passed a Resolution which was sent on to the Budget Committee in the state government expressing our regrets. However, I am trying to think when that West Tower went up and was dedicated. It certainly was in the late 1970s and I don't think it was as far as 1980.

Let me tell you about some of the heartaches that went through the staff at that time. Originally, of course, we were staffed for basically a 100-bed hospital, then moving to a 300-bed hospital you have to have staff that can handle a 300-bed hospital too. During this period of time it was difficult to find rooms, not only for Pitt County residents and patients, but also for those who were drifting in from the other twenty-nine county area because of the expertise that we had here in the medical school. I think two of our fine doctors, namely Dr. Jack Welch, who is retiring very shortly, and Dr. Billy Bost, who has had some medical problems, they were the two Chiefs of Staff that I recall. I don't think they spent many hours practicing medicine during their years of being Chiefs of Staff because they were working with hospital staff trying to find rooms to get the patients in from Pitt County and from other areas.

Something else, I think, that is worthy of note too, Jack Richardson was the Chief Executive Officer of the hospital. He was a very well disciplined man and a bright man. I was Chairman of the Board at that time and we worked very well together, but I know one year we had to change the organizational structure of the senior staff in the hospital because you just couldn't have them burn out. There was so much work to be done. It wasn't a case of just adding employees. You have to have well-qualified employees for the various positions to run a 300-bed hospital. Jack had the acuity to know what was needed and before every move he would sit and discuss it with me. Perhaps twice that year, we had to change the organizational structure to avoid burnout of good people.

Marion Blackburn: Such as the Chief of Staff or who?

Harry Leslie: Chiefs of Staff, yes. Of course we didn't want our Chiefs of Staff to burn out. We don't choose the Chief of Staff of medical people. The physicians choose their own. We work with them and depend on them for medical counsel and so on.

Marion Blackburn: What staff do you feel had some of the most stress during those times?

Harry Leslie: Well, the Vice President of Nursing Services would be one. You had to hire them and keep them happy. Also the Vice President of Facilities, Vice President of Finance. Those are typical examples of senior staff that you had to have them properly supported in their various units.

Marion Blackburn: Were these some of the people that you had to reorganize to assist?

Harry Leslie: Yes, that's right. We had to get the right people in the right jobs whether they were senior or otherwise.

Marion Blackburn: You were going from a county hospital to a regional hospital.

Harry Leslie: We knew it was going to be a regional hospital once we had the affiliation with the medical school and that would encompass the twenty-nine county area as well. So, starting in 1975, whether we liked it or not, we were a regional hospital.

Marion Blackburn: Forgive me here, but I have to backtrack. The move to the new hospital took place in 1975 as well?

Harry Leslie: No, in 1977.

Marion Blackburn: So the new hospital started in 1977 and the four-year medical school?

Harry Leslie: Yes, I think when Bill Laupus, our Dean, I think that is about the time. He was just a wonderful man to work with.

Marion Blackburn: So, in 1975 at the old hospital, did you start to begin to have this heavy load of patients?

Harry Leslie: This happened long before 1975 because it was 1970 in the election year that they approved the obligation bonds to proceed with the building of the new hospital.

Marion Blackburn: During this time, pretty much from the time you came to Greenville, through the seventies and then, of course, how did you stay on the Board at the hospital?

Harry Leslie: I was on the Board from 1976 to 1984. In 1978 I became Chairman of the Board and was Chairman until the day I retired from active service on the Board. I guess to encourage me to stay on and keep interested in it they made me Honorary Trustee at that time. I was the first Honorary Trustee.

Marion Blackburn: Did you continue to attend meetings?

Harry Leslie: Oh, I can still attend meetings. I don't have a vote anymore but once in awhile I open my mouth.

Marion Blackburn: I'm fascinated by this period of 1976 to 1984 and especially with all the changes and the growth that was taking place and some of the struggles. You mention the struggle that you had to make sure that you had senior staff that could handle the pressure. Can you talk a little bit more about some of the major organizational changes that you had to help navigate?

Harry Leslie: Well, as I said, it was mainly organizational structure, chain of command and so on. The way you had to supplement the staff.

Marion Blackburn: Did you have to create a lot of new positions that maybe had never been in the hospital before?

Harry Leslie: That was done on a gradual basis. You couldn't do all that with a snap of the fingers. Your unit heads had to plan in their own respective areas and then get Mr. Richardson's approval. He always kept me well informed.

Marion Blackburn: Where did the money come from for all these expansions and new positions?

Harry Leslie: From patient revenue. The hospital did not come back to the county commissioners for any funds that I can recall in my exposure to Pitt County Memorial Hospital. Patient revenues were able to support the hospital, purchase equipment, expand, etc. When you're a Pitt County Memorial Hospital if you didn't have the funds, and I know this happens to a good many counties, you go back to the county for supplemental funds. I don't recall ever going back to the county for supplemental funds. The $9 million obligation bonds were paid out by the county.

Marion Blackburn: There is a big difference between effectively running a hospital and running a hospital that is not only effective but superb, with exceptional service and exception physicians. I would say that PCMH is definitely of the latter. It is a superb place for family medical care as well as the specialties. Can you talk a little bit about how that was built?

Harry Leslie: Well, we were most fortunate in having doctor William E. Laupus as the Dean of the Medical School of East Carolina University. Now it is called Brody Medical School. I think there was some $20 million in the Brody Foundation that was given to us. When you give that amount of money you should certainly have your name on the building in one form or another. There were some articles in the press about this because it was East Carolina University but the Brody family has just been a wonderful family in this respect.

Dr. Bill Laupus is highly respected, not only nationally but in some cases internationally. Professionally he is a pediatrician and certainly highly respected in that area. You just have to know this man to know how he operates. I'll put it this way. You can't hurry Bill, but when you have a problem you sit down with him and some way or another he will work it out.

A typical example I can give you is when I was still plant manager over at Burroughs Wellcome we would send employees over occasionally to the Emergency Department. The nurses sat down with me one day and asked what can they do when they send an employee over there and he sits for three hours or more before they take care of them. So, that was one thing I looked into and I found out that our doctors don't like to give up patients to someone else. Before we had the setup that we have now in the Emergency Department the private practicing physicians took turns at being Emergency Department physicians. This was not an assignment that you looked forward to and so you could see there was some difficulty right there and I was told if we sent an employee over to the hospital Emergency Department that the first question they asked was if they had a family doctor and most of them had one. They would call their physician. Well you don't know where he might be at the time and maybe he was seeing patients back in his own office and it might be three hours or more before he would get to the Emergency Department to take care of them. So that was just one of the problems.

When I sat down with Dr. Laupus and asked him what we could do to rectify this situation here and he told me that I was probably several years ahead of him because he visualized a special division here of Emergency Medicine. So over a period of time the Emergency Department was established and we now have residents who are learning to be specialists in Emergency Department medicine.

Marion Blackburn: So, it sounds like the growth of the hospital and the medical school has been truly hand in hand.

Harry Leslie: Oh, hand in hand. They have had a wonderful workshop setup. Under the Affiliation Agreement we were supposed to have joint meetings, I think quarterly, in case sticky problems arose, something like that. During my period of time as Chairman of the Board it was hard to find an agenda to have a meeting because we got along so well. Jack Richardson certainly worked well with the medical staff and with the teaching staff too. Certainly Dave McRae works wonderfully well with them. That is just to show you what happened with Dr. Laupus. There are other things too where he has helped me. I never hesitated to go to him and sit down and ask him what he could do for us.

Marion Blackburn: So, it is almost that if there were a need or an area where you desired growth in the hospital, a lot of time you could find a similar need in the medical school.

Harry Leslie: Well, they probably had plans for it because when the medical school started or moved in here, they just had the Brody Building and they didn't have the staff that we have now. There is the medical staff and the private practicing physicians so the hospital not under Jack Richardson but under Dave McRae, recognized that there were three areas that you had to work with. You had to work with the teaching staff and you had to work with the private practicing physicians and they are organized too, as you know. So they had their representatives and when plans for new building and one thing or another of this nature, the immediate and long range program are brought into it. Together that is how we make progress. That is how we are in this university system too.

Marion Blackburn: So the three areas are teaching staff, private physicians and immediate and long range plans.

Harry Leslie: Many, many years ago when Jack Richardson had this idea that we could help the hospitals in outlying areas, I think Jack on his own sent out one of our special nurses to try and work some problems in one hospital and then Jack and I went there personally one time to just sit and talk but it didn't take very long to learn that we were persona non grata.

Marion Blackburn: Because you came from the big medical center?

Harry Leslie: Well, I guess they thought that maybe we were would be stealing patients away from that geographical area and they would be coming here. It has taken a long period of time to get to the point where we are working together and we are not trying to steal their patients. What we are trying to do is preserve hospitals for primary care so secondary and tertiary care can come here.

Marion Blackburn: That is definitely a new trend or a new way of organizing a region's health care that is definitely being put into effect here where you have Pitt County Memorial Hospital as the acute care tertiary hospital.

Harry Leslie: I don't know, maybe some others do it but I am unaware of it. I think we are pioneering this and you have the right man in Dave McRae and Jim Hallock, the Dean.

Marion Blackburn: Did you help to sort of spearhead things into this direction? Do you remember already feeling this movement in the late seventies or early eighties?

Harry Leslie: Dave did not come on to be President of the Hospital until after I had left. I always worked with Jack Richardson but Jack molded Dave before he came on and, of course, Dave has a wonderful command of the English language and can express himself very, very well. He was just the right man. He could see all the good points of Jack too. I don't want to take credit for steering him that way. Certainly my thinking was straight in that respect if you put it down. I didn't conceive those ideas but I saw them developing.

Marion Blackburn: Are you pleased with the results?

Harry Leslie: Very pleased. I was very nervous when we had this battle over privatization though.

Marion Blackburn: Tell me about that.

Harry Leslie: Privatization could be accomplished to through the wisdom of our Legislators in Raleigh because they established the Law to provide for this type of thing. A case just like Pitt County Memorial Hospital where it was owned by the county, pioneered by the county and you certainly need a lot of respect of residents and taxpayers do for seeing this thing develop to the point.

Dr. Jenkins, who was the Chancellor of the university, could visualize what was needed in the whole twenty-nine county area as well as Pitt County. It was mainly his vision in his battle with legislators and those who opposed in the Piedmont and elsewhere. If you went into his home sometime he had a hallway where he had posted up all the nasty editorials from The News & Observer, pictures of one thing and another, and he was just proud of them pointing the finger at what a wrecker he was supposed to be and that they had plenty of medical schools around and they didn't need one in the east here. But thanks to Dr. Jenkins in his efforts we got a med school and then the med school took hold and you can see what developed now. At this point we have the university system and slowly but surely that will develop, as funds are available.

We bought Heritage Hospital and that was bought from formerly Hospital Corporation of America and then they were Columbia/HCA. The Chief Executive Officer there is a bright lady. She is delighted that she is under this umbrella and not with HCA anymore.

Marion Blackburn: After Christmas and in January I was working with folks doing the Annual Report going to the affiliate hospitals and I think what I saw was that there was an effort by University Health Systems to provide support and to help them to be aware that we were not trying to steal patients but were trying to support what they were doing.

Harry Leslie: Yes, that message is accepted now, I think. I think one of the first visits was Jack Richardson and myself to learn that we were not welcome.

Marion Blackburn: A lot of change, not only is there now the University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina and the medical school, but there is also, of course, on the other side maybe not so bright side, there is a lot of attention given now to the bottom line, to cost containment, to managed care, Medicaid, Medicare. Would you like to speak about some of the financial issues that you saw appear and how they have turned out?

Harry Leslie: Well, I doubt that the general public realized just how much charity is provided by Pitt County Memorial Hospital. I don't know at the moment just what the budget is but for indigent care and those that can't pay, you have to have twenty-five percent, plus or minus, in your annual budget. That didn't come out of the Pitt County funds either. They weren't taxed, as this was patient revenue that paid that.

Marion Blackburn: Now I know that there is a trend to try to sort of cut costs that has made it very, very important to be as efficient as possible in everything you do in a hospital.

Harry Leslie: Yes, they have done a very good job in that respect, tightening up wherever possible. You even find doctors talking about what they are doing to reduce costs. One of them especially is Dr. Ranny Chitwood.

Marion Blackburn: It is hard not to say enough good things about him and lots of others like him that I have heard of.

Harry Leslie: Well, I mention his name but there are many like him. If you mention his name and say Dr. Ranny Chitwood, the real name is Randolph but Ranny is what I call him anyway because his mother called him Ranny. Dr. Chitwood reported to us at the Board one time just how much cost saving they had been able to accomplish that one year. So you have them and other departments just as sincere as he is.

Marion Blackburn: How are they cutting these costs, or in what areas did they report the most success in cutting costs? Do you remember any specifics?

Harry Leslie: I can't come up with specifics with Dr. Chitwood. In the system to cut costs, when you purchase in large quantities the Purchasing Department certainly can cut an awful lot of costs there. If you are going to order a single bottle versus a dozen or a gross, it makes a difference in what you pay.

Marion Blackburn: What was the atmosphere in looking at the mid to late seventies when there were so many patients and so much of a time of growth. Do you remember maybe the most difficult time that you had to personally be a part of?

Harry Leslie: My friends called me, especially those that were in terminal illness. As an example, a good friend, church member. He and his wife were just a delightful couple. We worked together on church projects and he was in a terminal illness. His wife called me one day and told me that she had not been able to get her husband into the hospital for several days, it might have been a week or more. She said that he needed special treatment. He had terminal cancer and he needed another treatment. I would call up the nurse in charge and ask her if there was any possibility of getting him in. Of course, the Chief of Staff was getting far more phone calls that I was. The nurse said that maybe they could get him in tomorrow and she would see if they could.

Marion Blackburn: Was this when they were in the new hospital or still in the old hospital?

Harry Leslie: The new hospital.

Marion Blackburn: Was this because of staff shortages?

Harry Leslie: No, it was because there were no rooms available.

Marion Blackburn: This was before the new tower?

Harry Leslie: Well, most of this type of thing took place before the new tower. You still have some of it, you know. This hospital runs around 85% occupancy all the time.

Marion Blackburn: And during January, during the snows, as I remember it was extremely high. I think it was in the 90s.

Harry Leslie: January and February are very busy months. In something like my friend's problem there and his wife calling me up trying to get him in the hospital, would be a case of maybe there was an elective surgery tomorrow and that is what the nurse would do-she would delay that. Of course, that upsets the individual that planned for it but you have to establish your priorities. This is the type of thing that sort of drove us all up the wall. It was a good experience when you see how this hospital has developed and where it is now and where it will be if you want to visualize about another five to ten years too.

Marion Blackburn: About the hospital and the University Health Systems, can you describe what kind of an impact it has had on this region?

Harry Leslie: It has had tremendous impact on the general state of health care in the whole twenty-nine county area. This is what Dr. Jenkins visualized way back years ago when it was an embryo idea.

Marion Blackburn: Thank goodness for his vision and for the vision of others.

Harry Leslie: Also in his persistence. Persistence and enthusiasm.

Marion Blackburn: I would always say the ability to weather a lot of arrows, especially coming from the folks at Chapel Hill. I just read Wayne Williams' history of East Carolina and had the chance to interview Dr. Monroe and I had no idea it was such a struggle.

Harry Leslie: Ed Monroe was referred to as Dr. Jenkins' hit man I guess. He was the behind-the-scenes individual who talked to the legislators who did all the work. I am pleased to see that Ed finally got his name on a building. Also, I am pleased to see that he is Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the hospital. It is only going to be for a year but he will be a good one. He has been a good friend through the years too. He worked very, very well with Dr. Laupus. He was in charge of the rural development area, AHEC.

Marion Blackburn: I imagine it's hard to think of funny times or lighthearted times, do you ever remember any stories about your time on the Board that maybe were unexpected or surprises or anything out of the ordinary that you weren't expecting to happen?

Harry Leslie: Embezzlement.

Marion Blackburn: With the Foundation or within the hospital?

Harry Leslie: No, not with the Foundation. This was a trying time with Jack Richardson. He called me at home one day and told me I wouldn't believe it about one of their trusted executives. He said the Finance Manager, saw something that just wasn't right and Jack called the executive in and talked to him and he confessed everything.

Marion Blackburn: Was this the Vice President for Finance?

Harry Leslie: No, no, it wasn't the Vice President for Finance. This man carried a master key and he could get in and out of every place.

Marion Blackburn: How did you handle a situation like that?

Harry Leslie: Well, Jack and I worked together on that. I said to Jack that he probably would have to go to the District Attorney on something like this but we just didn't know what to do. We made the District Attorney aware of it and furthermore, we had to call in the Press.

Marion Blackburn: How did that feel, having to have a press conference?

Harry Leslie: Well, fortunately, one of the girls who worked for the medical school was a reporter and so Jack called her in and she fired all kinds of questions so that they would be ready for this type of thing and I stayed out of it altogether at that point. I was aware of what was going on but knew that we had to get this in the paper and what was being done and that the District Attorney would be handling it and so on. Of course, we suspended him right away.

Marion Blackburn: Any thoughts about the Press over the years?

Harry Leslie: I worked very well with the Press here. Politically I am not with them but other than that I think they do a pretty good job. I have had good experience with the Whichard brothers and Jordy, I know him very well. As a little side story, the Press had not come out in regard to privatization and they had an open forum and I spoke that night. It was shortly after my last hospitalization and I couldn't stay for long, but anyway, you were supposed to have three minutes and in three minutes I hardly had an introduction and I wasn't going to stop and one of the most vocal people against the thing said it wasn't fair to let me speak on. Anyway, the Chairman of the Board happened to disagree with Kenneth Dews. Kenneth said afterward that he had told him to let me speak. I spoke and, on the way out Jordy was there, I know him pretty well, and of course, Dave, his father, was the owner before and I told Jordy that it was time that they took a position and he did within a few days in the Editorial. This was positive as far as the Press was concerned. They have been very good with me as far as the hospital is concerned and as far the Whichard brothers were concerned when I was at Burroughs Wellcome. I couldn't ask for better cooperation.

Marion Blackburn: I have one last question about a specific fund-raising project. I think Wayne Williams told me there was $30,000 that Burroughs Wellcome specifically contributed, do you remember?

Harry Leslie: That was just when they first moved down here. I knew Chancellor Jenkins beforehand as I had been down here several occasions before I moved down here permanently. Our Board, meaning Burroughs Wellcome Board, met one morning and decided to give the medical school $30,000 and they failed to tell me. My secretary told me that WITN Channel 7 and Dr. Jenkins were down there waiting for me.

Marion Blackburn: You didn't know anything about it?

Harry Leslie: No, they had a meeting that morning and they hadn't called me to tell me they were going to give $30,000 so I had to wing it. I told Leo that I knew they were talking about doing something like that but that I didn't know it had come to fruition. He told me that he had just received a call and been told. Here he was with the Press out at the front door. That is the way that man was, whenever he was going to have an expansion he would be looking for money from Burroughs Wellcome and he sat down with me. When he was going to expand the stadium at one time he sat down with me and asked me about it and I told him that I would go along with expanding the stadium but the only thing I thought may be that he was ahead of time a little bit. Next thing in another week or two he would have the program underway. This expansion to the stadium was when he was living.

Marion Blackburn: Do you remember when that $30,000 was given?

Harry Leslie: That was in the fall of 1970. We have given a lot more money since then. That was the first.

Marion Blackburn: Do you remember any other fund-raising efforts that you were involved with?

Harry Leslie: Oh yes, Foundation. I mentioned to you when we had that Gifts Committee. Well, the Gifts Committee functioned for quite some time and a good friend of mine, Bill Watson, is a fun guy to know. He is a lawyer and a time or two we talked about having a Foundation as a separate entity altogether. Then the auditors came through one time and they noticed that after we did form a Foundation that there was a Foundation and there was a Gifts Committee. They said that this was confusing to anybody who wants to give money. If you give money to the Gifts Committee it goes to the hospital account and so on. The Foundation was a separate entity altogether. Bill and I worked and we did set up a Foundation and I don't just remember the exact date but Brenda Joyner can give you that information because we brought her onboard at that time and it has been a pleasure to work with her. Anyway, we sort of just went along with the tide I guess for several years and Bill said that we needed to get some money in there and wondered what we could do about it. Privately we discussed it and then at one meeting we had of the directors, I don't know whether we had $100,000 plus or minus that we owned as a Foundation. Behind the scenes we had checked with Ketchum to see what it would cost to have them come in and advise us on having a fund drive. It was going to be $10,000 and the Board agreed and I think it was unanimous too,that we would spend $10,000, bring Ketchum in and let them do an appraisal of the situation here and see if it would be possible to put on a drive for a couple of million dollars.

They did and they interviewed a lot of people and came back and told us exactly what to do. To go through the medical people first of all, employees at the hospital, and not to touch industry whatsoever until we had the money from the practicing physicians, the academic physicians, the hospital employees, and then, at that point, go out to industry and business.

Marion Blackburn: Why was that important?

Harry Leslie: Well, doctors are not too well known for their philanthropy. We have some wonderful doctors here and don't like to hurt anybody's feelings because I can tell you some wonderful stories in this deal. Anyway, the Ketchum Company advised us to make our goal $1.750,000 rather than $2 million and go step by step as they had suggested and that was exactly what we did. They sent in a fine person by the name of Tom Mascornic and I enjoyed working with him. I was appointed Chairman of that deal.

Anyway, it was pretty well accepted. The private practicing physicians gave a little bit more than the academic physicians. I think it was like $10,000 or $20,000 more or something like that. We didn't want it adversarial. We wanted it kind of a fun contest to see how it would work out but the private practicing physicians did give more.

Afterwards I went in to some of them in industry. A well known construction man here in the community asked what the doctors gave and I told him what the practicing physicians gave and what the others gave and he said that averaged $3,000 and he would give me $3,000. So you see, that is why we needed to follow through on what Ketchum told us and I didn't go to Burroughs Wellcome until afterwards too and Burroughs Wellcome gave us $300,000. To make a long story short, our goal was $1,750,000 and we ended up with $2,220,000 and the shrinkage on that I don't think was more than maybe $10,000 or $12,000, something like that.

Marion Blackburn: Do you remember the date of this or the approximate date?

Harry Leslie: It lasted until I think it was 1985. It has been so long ago now, either 1985 or 1986. I was retired and I think that's why they told me to get busy and raise the money. It was fun and there were some funny experiences there. Eddie Smith who runs the Grady White Boat Factory over here. We had been good friends for years and Tom Mascornic went in with me that day and sat down with Eddie and some of his staff and I asked Eddie if he would consider a gift of $50,000 and that would preferably be over a period of three years or if he would like five years would be fine too. He looked at me and said that I overshot the runway. Anyway, he gave us $25,000. These are some of the tactics that Tom taught me too in that you always asked for more than you expect to get. I asked for $300,000 from Burroughs Wellcome and got $300,000.

Marion Blackburn: Were you retired from Burroughs Wellcome at the time?

Harry Leslie: I retired in 1982 from Burroughs Wellcome.

Marion Blackburn: That is quite a story.

Harry Leslie: Yes, I'm 83 now. I just had a birthday the other day on April 7. Let me tell you another story too. This is on doctors. I don't want you to use names and I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. There was a doctor and he is one of the finest and he had an excellent staff at the time and I called him up one night because I found out if I called a doctor's home and chat about this fund drive that we were having that they would listen and would give more money. I called him one night and boy when he answered the phone, I knew he had a short fuse, but for about ten minutes he let me have it right and left. He went in the night before on an emergency call and he couldn't find a parking place. I told him I didn't run the parking lot and I wasn't even Chairman of the Board at that time. I was flabbergasted and I didn't have an answer for him. I told him I would look into it in the morning and see what we could do for him but I could understand his plight when he couldn't find any place to park and he had an emergency patient waiting on him. Then I asked him if he would listen to me for a little while that I told him that I had a proposal for him. He knew about it at that time and he said he wouldn't give us a cent.