M. Cass Wheeler
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Position: Chief Executive Officer
Organization: American Heart Association
Location: Dallas, TX
M. Cass Wheeler is a co-convener of the Panel.
M. Cass Wheeler is chief executive officer of the American Heart Association, a national voluntary health agency whose mission is to reduce disability and death from cardiovascular diseases and stroke. Mr. Wheeler joined the organization at its Texas affiliate in Austin in 1973, where he became vice president for field operations and later executive vice president. He came to the National Center in Dallas in 1982 as chief operating officer, assumed the position of senior vice president for field operations in 1996, and was named CEO in 1997. Under his leadership, the association merged its 56 individual state and metropolitan affiliates into 12 regional affiliates and adopted a single corporate structure. Previously chair of the Board of Directors for the National Health Council, Mr. Wheeler is currently on the boards of Partnership for Prevention, National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, Research!America, and the National Assembly of Human Service Organizations. He is also on the boards of INDEPENDENT SECTOR and Advisors of Discovery Health Media, Inc. and is on the Citizens Advisory Council for the Campaign for Medical Research and Advisory Council of the Campaign for Public Health. Mr. Wheeler received a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Texas at Austin in 1963, after which he served in various roles at the American Cancer Society; between 1969 to 1973, he was a stockbroker in Dallas. A native Texan, Mr. Wheeler is an elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Dallas.