F. Amos Bailey '79

A 1979 Stetson Biology cum laude graduate, Amos Bailey earned his medical degree from the University of South Florida's College of Medicine. He did an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the Fletcher Allen Health Care Medical Center Hospital of Vermont in Burlington and received a fellowship for further work in Hematology and Oncology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He practiced medicine for five years at Raleigh Regional Cancer Center in Beckley, W.Va.

Now assistant professor of Internal Medicine in both the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology and the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Alabama, he also serves as an attending physician in Hospice and Palliative Care. He is director of Palliative Care at the Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where he also works at the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center. He is the founder and medical director of the Safe Harbor Palliative Care Project at the Birmingham VA Medical Center, as well as the founder of Birmingham's Balm of Gilead Palliative Care Center and a past medical director of the Birmingham Area Hospice. Respected nationally by his peers, he serves on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Care.

His book, The Palliative Response, was published in 2003, and he has also written numerous scholarly articles and lectured at many major conferences on end-of-life issues. His work has received more than $2 million in grant support, and he has been honored with the Palliative Care American Hospital Association's "Circle of Life" Citation of Honor. He was also included as an expert in Bill Moyers' Public Television series, "On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying."

Shephard W. Hill '75

Shephard Hill, a 1975 Stetson graduate in history, served for seven years as chief of staff and legislative director to the late U.S. Congressman Bill Chappell of Florida. He is a 1984 alumnus of the Naval War College and a 1989 graduate of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government's Program for Senior Executives in National and International Security.

Named president of Boeing International in 2007, he oversees The Boeing Company's international affairs, with leadership responsibilities for 20 Boeing in-country operations around the world. Previously, he served The Boeing Company as senior vice president of Business Development and Strategy, responsible for analyzing and developing plans to drive the company's growth and nurture new businesses. A member of the Boeing Executive Council, he coordinated Boeing's Corporate Development function, with responsibility for acquisitions, divestitures, mergers, equity investments and joint ventures.

He has also served twice as vice president for Business Development at Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS), responsible for the development, integration, and implementation of IDS customer and business strategies; and as vice president for Boeing Space and Communications (S&C) Government Relations, charged with the management and direction of S&C's business interests and activities in the Washington, D.C., area.

He joined Boeing when the company acquired Rockwell's Aerospace and Defense business in 1996, where he was serving as vice president for Aerospace Government Affairs and Marketing. His first position with Boeing was vice president, Space Systems, for the company's Integrated Space and Defense Systems business unit.

James W. Lea '64, MA '65

Interested in literature, James Lea earned two Stetson degrees, a Bachelor of Arts in 1964 and a Master of Arts in 1965, both in English. He taught for two years at Miami-Dade Community College, returning to teach at Stetson from 1967 to 1970. He then earned a doctorate in American Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1973.

Now a professor of Family Medicine in the University of North Carolina's Chapel Hill School of Medicine, he works on such projects as developing thermoelectric cooling for the transportation of vaccines and other biomaterials and planning and conducting management training for physicians and others serving in conflict and post-conflict settings. For the past 20 years, he has also advised U.S. and foreign family-owned companies on resolving performance and relationship issues. His book, Keeping it in the Family: Successful Succession of the Family Business (1991), has also been published in Spanish (1993). He writes a twice-monthly column on family business for the American City Business Journals and has published numerous journal articles on both family business and global health issues. He is also a frequent speaker to professional organizations, trade groups and university audiences, and he has been quoted by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Entrepreneur Magazine.

His work has taken him to 30 countries on five continents. In 1979, he founded INTRAH (Program for International Training in Health), a non-profit global health services development organization administered by UNC until 2003. While serving as a consultant to the Iraqi Ministry of Health, he lived and worked in the center of Baghdad, moving about the city in a helmet and body armor, and counts his effort there as one of his most rewarding experiences.