Army Lieutenant General (retired) Mark Hertling has an impressive career in the military and civilian sectors, and his educational background is uniquely varied. He received an undergraduate degree from West Point, a MS in Kinesiology from Indiana University and an MA in international security studies from the National Defense University before he received his DBA from Crummer in 2019.
Mark served for 38 years in the US Army as a tanker and cavalryman, commanding units from tank platoon to Field Army. He concluded his Army career in 2012 as the Commanding General of US Army in Europe, leading over 60,000 soldiers and collaborating with the armies and governments of 51 nations on the continent. After retiring from the Army, Mark was appointed by President Obama as one of 25 members to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sport, and Nutrition. For several years, he also served as a Senior Vice President and advisor at the Leadership Institute at AdventHealth.
In 2016 his book “Growing Physician Leaders: Empowering Doctors to Improve Our Healthcare” was released. The dean of Crummer at the time, Craig McAllister, asked Mark to present a lecture on leadership to the Crummer MBA students and after the class Dean McAllister suggested to Mark that he might be interested in Executive Doctor of Business Administration program. “I discussed the proposal with my wife,” Mark said, “and we agreed going back to school at the age of 63 would be a great new challenge. After all, good leaders continue to learn and grow every day!” When asked what he brought from his military career that carried over to the DBA course work, Mark quickly answered, “Everything! Every course had a corollary or something comparable to what I had experienced in the Army, but Crummer helped me to understand just how much I didn’t know about processes and systems.”
Mark’s dissertation, “Physicians Must Lead! A Comparative Study of Two Approaches to Physician Leadership,” was intertwined with a program he started at AdventHealth to improve physician leadership. Dr. Kimberly Smith-Jentsch was his thesis advisor and guided his work through statistical analysis of the research he conducted at two hospitals in the Midwest. His mixed-methods study compared the outcomes of two identical physician leadership development courses—one homogeneous (physician-only) and the other interprofessional (including doctors, nurses, and administrators)—using quantitative and qualitative analysis to determine their effectiveness. “The dynamics and what I learned reinforced the hypothesis Dr. Jentsch coached me on, and we learned quite a bit from the research.”
Looking back, Mark has many fond memories of the EDBA program—including one where a fellow racecar-driving classmate invited a few in his cohort to the track for a drive—and he thoroughly enjoyed every single class. “We were able to get so many unique perspectives from so many different people who were representing myriad industries and approaches. All of it drove and improved our thought process, problem solving, and decision making.” He also found the professors to be knowledgeable, caring, and effective in their methods. “Every one of the professors and instructors were awesome and taught us so much while showing they truly cared about our learning.”
Mark stays quite busy as military analyst for CNN while speaking about national security, healthcare and leadership to a variety of audiences. He was recently appointed by President Biden as one of eleven commissioners to the American Battle Monument Commission and while he’s been teaching at Crummer as an adjunct instructor since 2019, he was recently appointed by Dean Menon as the first Professor of Practice at the school. “My passion is teaching. If you can positively influence someone who looks to make a difference in the world and challenge them to think through complex issues, it’s magical to see their eyes light up. It’s so much fun to engage with Crummer students!” He is looking forward to collaborating more with Dean Menon and all the MBA students on leadership, ethics, accountability, and character, which both of them see as a way to positively influence the business environment in the US.
Mark’s top two leadership tips are to take your job but never yourself seriously, and to build trust in all relationships. “Trust is the basis of all leadership. Successful leaders build trust with their peers, members of their team, and in their organizations…and when you share that trust you develop high performing teams.”
When Mark isn’t working, you might find him riding his bike, spending time with his family, reading books, or traveling. We are honored to have Mark as an alum and part of our faculty, and we are proud of his accomplishments.
