Richard Hart, MD, Dr. PH, Chancellor and CEO of Loma Linda University, has been named president and chief executive officer of Loma Linda University Adventist Health Sciences Center (LLUAHSC). He will replace B. Lyn Behrens, MBBS, who announced last December that she would be retiring in March of 2008.

“The board and search committee believe that Dr. Hart’s distinguished career of service has ideally prepared him for this position,” said Cooper. “As both a physician and an academician, he is knowledgeable about the unique challenges and opportunities faced by an academic health sciences center. We believe he brings both the training and the experience to lead this organization at this important time in its history, and will be able to ensure that no momentum is lost as we move forward on major expansion, fund-raising and research initiatives now in place.”

Richard H. Hart, MD, Dr. PH, was named chancellor and chief executive officer of Loma Linda University in February, 2001. He was born in 1945 at the Loma Linda Sanitarium and Hospital, and received his early education in Washington at Upper Columbia Academy in Spangle, and Walla Walla College in College Place. While at Walla Walla, he became the first student missionary from the Seventh-day Adventist Church to serve outside of North America.

In 1966, prior to his first year in medical school, he married Judy Osborne. The Harts now have three daughters: Chandra, Briana, and Kari.

In 1970, he earned two LLU degrees--an MD from the School of Medicine and an MPH from the School of Public Health. Following an internal medicine internship at LLUMC, he began studies toward his doctor of public health degree at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

From 1972 to 1976, Dr. Hart served in Tanzania. As a population intern from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, he developed the department of community health in Moshi. During this time, he co-authored “Child Health,” a book for mid-level health professionals in Africa. In 1974, a USAID contract with LLU took him to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, where he was chief of party to the Ministry of Health and helped to develop a maternal and child health program.

In 1977, Dr. Hart received his doctor of public health degree from Johns Hopkins University and became board-certified in preventive medicine. Dr. Hart has served Loma Linda University since 1972, including as chair of the department of health sciences, director of the Center for Health Promotion, chair of the School of Medicine Department of Preventive Medicine, and, since 1990, dean of the School of Public Health.

Dr. Hart’s vision extends to the farthest reaches of the globe. His early involvement in student missionary work was key in the development of Students for International Mission Service and Social Action Community Health System--a local low-cost health-care system for the medically underserved. He is also president of Adventist Health International, a new organization created to manage health services in developing countries.

Founded in 1905, Loma Linda University (LLU) is a private, Christian, coeducational, health sciences university located in Southern California 60 miles east of Los Angeles close to San Bernardino. LLU is part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s system of higher education. As such it provides an environment for learning that emphasizes individual commitment to Christ, personal integrity, intellectual development, and community service. Eight schools and the Faculty of Graduate Studies comprise the University organization. More than 100 certificate and degree programs are offered by the schools of Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health, Religion, and Science and Technology. Curricula offered range from certificates of completion and associate in science degrees to doctor of philosophy and professional doctoral degrees. Students from more than 80 countries around the world and virtually every state in the nation are represented in Loma Linda University’s student body