Jim Wharton to join Mercy Medical Center-Sioux City

Feb. 15, 2007

Mercy Medical Center-Sioux City has announced the appointment of Jim Wharton as the hospital's director of development and public policy.

Wharton, a long-time community leader and former mayor of Sioux City, will begin his job at Mercy on Mar. 20.

As part of the Mercy Medical Center Foundation team, he will generate financial support for Mercy through corporate and individual sources, including annually renewable support, legacies, and planned giving. He will also assume primary responsibility for the implementation of the hospital's strategy related to government relations, including lobbying the Iowa legislature and Congress regarding healthcare issues, funding of special projects, as well as reimbursement issues.

Wharton will report directly to Paul Dougherty, the organization's president and CEO, and will work closely with Lea Clausen, who will continue to serve as the executive director of the Mercy Medical Center Foundation. Clausen will also continue to report directly to the CEO.

"We are delighted to welcome Jim to the Mercy family," Dougherty said in announcing the appointment. "He has a wealth of experience, and is well respected in the community."

"With proven professionalism and integrity, he will play an important role in helping Mercy advance its faith-based mission in the regional community it serves."

Wharton has been a member of the Mercy Medical Center Foundation board of directors since 2006, and a member of Mercy's finance board for the past four years.

"I'm thrilled to be joining Mercy," Wharton stated. "As a board volunteer for many years, I've witnessed the hospital's commitment to quality and responsive health care."

"Now, I'm anxious to work to strengthen the hospital's mission of providing quality care to those who need it most," he added.

Since 2001, Wharton has served as the director of communications and director of stewardship and planned giving for the Diocese of Sioux City. He served as the primary spokesperson, and managed all planned giving activities for the diocese.

Wharton was also appointed to the National Advisory Council (NAC) of the United States Catholic Council of Bishops. The group of 56 people from across the country reviews documentation and offers recommendations concerning issues being considered by the Bishops of the U.S.

While working at the Sioux City Diocese, Wharton has also continued to serve as director of the Waitt Family Foundation.

From 1993 to 2001, he held several key leadership positions at Gateway, Inc. He was Gateway's vice president of global community relations, created the company's office of investor relations, and served for a time as Gateway's director of corporate communications, and as the company's director of community relations.

While at Gateway, Wharton also oversaw the establishment of the Gateway Foundation in 1995 and served as the foundation's first and only executive director.

Prior to joining Gateway, Wharton was vice president of development for Boys and Girls Home of Sioux City, Inc., from 1991 to 1993.

Jim Wharton served on the city council in Sioux City from 1990 to 1993, and was the city's mayor in 1993.

In 1992, the Des Moines Register named him one of 20 "Young Up and Comers" in Iowa.

He has also been actively involved in a number of civic and church organizations in the Siouxland area. In his involvement at the Church of the Nativity in Sioux City, he was chairperson for one capital campaign, and honorary chair of another.

A native of Nokomis, Illinois, Wharton earned a bachelor's degree in mass communications at Southern Illinois University, and later completed a master's degree at the University of South Dakota.

Wharton and his wife, Bev, who is president Briar Cliff University, are the parents of one daughter, Laura, who is a junior at the Creighton University Dental School in Omaha. She was married to Robert Giese in 2005.