A native of Chicago's Suburban communities, I was born at an Oak Park, Illinois hospital, on a hot and humid June day, according to my parents. I mention the place because of the importance that hospitals, as social environments, have on my life, and describe the weather because of the symbolic nature of how I experience my life, full of hot and nervous energy.

Following an enjoyable and imaginative adolescence, I worked through a BS in biology at the University of Illinois, Chicago, during the tumultuous late 1960s and early 1970s. While in college, I worked part time at a community hospital, where I met my wife, a child care technician. Later, armed with a degree and absolutely no marketable trade, I decided to pursue an allied health career in respiratory therapy, so I completed a certificate program at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics, and then went to work.

My career initially migrated toward hospital work because I've long had a fascination with hospitals as social microcosms of communities where life's greatest battles are won and lost. Later, reasoning that I could help more people by educating and training practitioners, I began teaching. Several years after, I went into clinical operations management but remained active in the education and training of respiratory therapists. For the next 24 years, I worked in a variety of management and executive positions, constantly emphasizing the value of education. During that time and while working two jobs, my wife and I had three children, and I completed an MBA at Rosary College (now Dominican University). Since 1998, I've been a faculty member of National Louis University, where I teach in a degree completion program, Health Care Leadership. Ironically, just when my three children have grown up, I find myself being reborn as an educator and student. It's entirely consistent with what I perceive to be the cyclical nature of my life.

My wife, now a registered nurse, and I currently live in the Western Suburbs of Chicago. Our oldest daughter is now an attorney, and our other daughter and son are in college. My leisure time activities include reading, singing in the church choir, playing golf and other sports, and relaxing with family and friends.

Email contact: Bob Benway