Bob Riney was born Downriver at what is now a Henry Ford hospital in Wyandotte, and after spending his 48-year career working for the Detroit-based health care system, he is planning to retire from there — but not anytime soon.
Riney, president/CEO of Henry Ford Health, has way too much going on including chairing the upcoming Detroit Regional Chamber’s annual Mackinac Policy Conference that takes play May 26-29 on the idyllic northern Michigan island.
Over 1,500 leaders from business, politics, sports and the community will gather there to discuss education, the state’s future, growing population and gearing up for the NCAA basketball’s Final Four in 2027, to mention a few topics.
There will be talk about politics — lots of it — as participants focus on local and national elections.
Riney knows the issues and the community. He started at Henry Ford Hospital working as a security guard to pay his way as he attended Wayne State University.
He would meet his wife, Sandy Riney (who worked as a nurse), which he told me remains the highlight of his years at Henry Ford. The couple will celebrate their 45th anniversary on June 6.
Riney loves helping people and the community — a standard he said his parents instilled in him and they remain his north star today when it comes to his approach to business and life.
Riney will be taking to the stage, moderating panels and introducing speakers as chairman. Former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.S. Energy Secretary and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan State University men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo and University of Michigan men’s basketball coach Dusty May are among those slated to appear.
Moderator is but one of eight high-profile nonprofit leadership roles the hard-charging, affable executive is taking on as he also runs the multibillion-dollar health care entity gearing up for grander things under his watch.
He has lots of support.
“Nothing made me happier than Bob being named president and CEO of Henry Ford Health and it often hits me that he is living his dream while working to make others’ dreams come true too through his efforts,” said Tony Michaels, president/CEO of The Parade Company.
Riney just wrapped up five years as chair of that company’s board and he will continue to be involved in America’s Thanksgiving Parade presented by Gardner White making sure kids and families have a chance to enjoy that epic event.
Riney knows Henry Ford Health as few others, having spent time in numerous departments as he worked his way up. He was named president of Health care Operations and COO in 2003-22 and then was named president/CEO in 2022. It was during the pandemic when Riney told me he was mulling retirement.
But fate stepped in. He met with another lifelong Detroit champion — businessman Dan Gilbert. The resulting conversation led to an inspiring blueprint to position Henry Ford as a medical research and innovation hub. MSU, BAMF Health, Tom Gores and the Detroit Pistons also are involved.
The goal: make Detroit a medical tourism destination.
And it’s happening on the same block where Henry Ford opened the doors at the facility 111 years ago. The $2.2 billion expansion is known as Destination Grand and includes a 20-story patient tower, with three floors dedicated to providing intensive inpatient care for stroke patients in partnership with the top-ranked Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. The inclusion of Shirley Ryan AbilityLab was made possible through a nearly $130 million investment by the Gilbert Family Foundation, whose co-founder, Dan Gilbert, credits the organization for his own recovery after a stroke in 2019.
The Gilbert Family Foundation also donated over $200 million to start the Nick Gilbert Neurofibromatosis Research Institute there. The facility is named after Gilbert’s late son who died of the genetic disease.
“Dan channeled personal health challenges into game changing support of critical clinical research to provide world class specialty care right here in his beloved hometown,” said Riney.
I posed a few questions to Riney. His answers are edited for length.
QUESTION: What do you hope comes from the Mackinac conference?
ANSWER: I hope people come out of the conference with a commitment to demand lawmakers in our state, regardless of party, work to solve the most vexing issues we are facing like education, economic development, population growth and health care affordability. If we don’t resolve those, as a state, we will be left in the dust.
Q: How are you juggling this historic election season with a governor’s race, U.S. Senate race and more at stake?
A: Politics is going to be significant on the island. We’re going to push our leaders to go beyond soundbites and talk about compromise — what they’re willing to do for the good of the state. We’ve got so much divisiveness in this country that I’m going to encourage people in the opening session to attend a speaker’s event there that may be very different from their own ideology. We’ve solved problems in the past this way and we can do it again.
Q: Growing population is an issue; how do you see it?
A: It’s important that we work harder at retaining our young people and recruit them from across the country, too. The Detroit area offers so much. People can live here at a reasonable cost. We need to be bringing in hundreds of thousands, not just hundreds, and create a national buzz that this is THE place to be.
Q: You are chair, too, of the Detroit Regional Partnership. How does it fit in?
A: Their focus is on organizing economic development packages with things like land assembly, tax incentives. The competition between states is getting fierce, and we need to work harder. We also need to be ready, willing and able to also embrace helping startups in our backyard.
Q: You are involved with so much. How do you juggle it and make time for yourself?
A: I’m involved in eight organizations, which is a big number. On the other hand, juggling is what comes naturally to me. They are all interrelated — key pieces of a puzzle that, when they all come together, improve our community exponentially.
I use Sundays for me. Right now, that means cheering on the Pistons, and in the summer I do boating and golfing. I love reading and always have a book with me. Right now, I’m rereading “Plum Island” by Nelson DeMille. It’s a thriller, like a James Patterson book but on steroids.
Q: How’s your golf game?
A: I might have one or two shots (per round) that are great. But my game is inconsistent. I stopped worrying about my score and decided to give up the self-loathing that comes with bad shots!
Contact Carol Cain at clcain@cbs.com. She is senior producer/host of “Michigan Matters,” which airs 5:30 a.m. Sundays on CBS Detroit and 9:30 a.m. Sundays on CW Detroit 50. See former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder; Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel; Detroit Deputy Mayor Brian White, and Strategist Susy Avery on this week’s show. You can also watch the show on the two stations’ listings on Fubu, Pluto TV, YouTube TV and Apple TV.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 6 questions with a Detroit exec who went from security guard to CEO
Reporting by Carol Cain, Detroit Free Press Business Columnist / Detroit Free Press
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