BusinessReport.com

Eric McMillen has always had a knack for business.

Nine years after a place with the Ochsner Foundation Administrative Fellow program jump-started a career with the health-care provider, McMillen is chief operating officer of the Baton Rouge region, overseeing a full-service medical center and six regional centers.

Managing the day-to-day affairs of a hospital means a long list of responsibilities in several arenas.

“Managing employees, managing budgets, contracting whatever needs to be done, working with physicians, opening new service lines … you name it,” he says. “Just like any other business, there are a lot of aspects to it.”

McMillen chose to go into health care because of its ever-changing dynamic, but felt he would fit better into the business side rather than in counseling. To that end, he enrolled in the MBA program at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette after graduating with a degree in rehabilitation services at LSU Medical Center in New Orleans.

Although challenges such as employee shortages and shifting payment structures that demand stellar management are constant, McMillen says, so is the public-service dynamic.

“I like working in administration because you can give back to the community and make a difference in people’s lives,” he says. “It’s probably cliché, but health care is unlike other businesses because your physicians and nurses are actually taking care of people in their time of need.”

McMillen says his drive and previous experience in operations management are responsible for his current position.

“At Ochsner’s main campus, where I was before, I continued to want more and more responsibility and they kept giving it to me,” he says. “When I moved on to the hospital, I think there was a need for that position.”

McMillen also is active with the Livingston Parish Chamber of Commerce and the Livingston Parish Economic Council because of past and current projects in the area.

“We definitely serve a lot of the Livingston Parish community, so I thought it was a good thing to get involved with the chamber and be a part of the community as well,” he says. “It’s been very beneficial just to understand the dynamics going on in Livingston Parish.”

Age: 37

How do you make yourself heard in the discussion 
on how to move Baton Rouge forward? “Being active in the parish chamber and outside your scope 
of work. Being heard in other forums besides your own.”

Click here for the complete list of 2009's Forty Under 40 winners.