Board of Trustees chairman reflects on service to IU

William Cast, a retired head and neck surgeon, is the chairman of the IU Board of Trustees, which will be meeting at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis’ Campus Center Feb. 14-15. Cast was appointed by former Gov. Mitch Daniels in 2005 and reappointed in 2008, according to the board’s website and a 2009 press release.

Cast was reappointed by Daniels in 2011. Cast was nominated and appointed to be the chairman of the board until at least 2013.

“The opportunity to serve is not only an honor, it is a very stimulating opportunity,” Cast said. “It’s really a rare opportunity. It is not so much work as it is stimulation and
enjoyable.”

Cast earned his M.D. from IU in 1962. He then went into the military, Cast said.

“I finished my residency and then I served in the Army as a specialist,” Cast said. “It was in the years ’68 and ’69, and I was working out of Fort Jackson as an ear, nose and throat surgeon where I did a lot of trauma surgery and worked with the aerovac.”

Cast has also worked with various companies, medical organizations and schools throughout his professional life.

According to Cast’s resume, he was the director of the American Council of Otolaryngology from 1976-78, the publisher and editor of the Medical Business Review from 1980-91 and is a director of both the IU Health System and the IU Foundation, among several other organizations.

Cast was also the founding chairman of the DuPont Hospital from 2002-05 in Fort Wayne, and the founding president of the K-12 Canterbury School. He was the president of the foundation from 1983-2011.

“A hospital was what was needed,” Cast said. “The school — I had three children and it was my wife’s idea to start a new school. We weren’t happy with how the school system was doing things, so we decided to do it ourselves.”

According to Cast’s resume, he is currently a director of Octamer Biotechnology Company, Indiana Health Information Exchange, the Chair of the Board of Directors of Fort Wayne Medical Surety and the CEO of NoMoreClipboard, as well as a board member of its parent company Medical Informatics Engineering.

Cast said his postion is similar to the other trustees.

“There’s no real difference between the chairman and the other trustees,” Cast said. “The chairman or the vice chair are going to make some committee appointments as a matter of reality. A lot of what the trustees are going to do is going to depend on their talents.”

Cast said he has a busy professional life.

“I’m old,” he said. “I’m not a young guy. I’ve been a lucky guy.”