William Mason

Obituary

A great servant has completed his service to the world. William Cordell Mason, EdD, FACHE, and CEO and President Emeritus of Baptist Health died July 2, 2024. He was 86. Among his many contributions to this city’s healthcare were the world-class Wolfson Children’s Hospital and Life Flight, the area’s first helicopter ambulance service. A visionary in the healthcare industry and a true citizen of the world, Bill Mason played many roles and wore many hats during his long and illustrious career. In addition to his executive functions in his hospitals in Africa, India, and the U.S., he was never too stuffy or prudish to get his hands dirty triaging the dead and wounded in Vietnam or the flood victims in India, even as he elevated his hospitals to powerhouses among the best in the world. His roles as husband and father, grandfather and great-grandfather, sibling and friend were among the greatest joys of his life.

Jacksonville knew him as “Mr. Baptist,” with his 20 years as President and Chief Executive Officer of Baptist Medical Center and Baptist Health. Bill came to Baptist in 1978 from the international stage, saw the potential of a viable but vulnerable institution, and, with the creation of a forward-thinking executive staff, took Baptist Medical Center from mediocrity into what one business associate calls one of the most formidable and commanding medical institutions in the U.S. During his time at Baptist, he saw its expansion to include new hospitals in Fernandina Beach, Jacksonville Beach, Baptist South, Wolfson Children’s Hospital, and of course helped to plan the future growth and expansion of the system that continues to dominate market share.

The seeds of Bill’s career in healthcare administration were sown very early in his life by his two grandfathers, both of whom were constant presences in his childhood and adolescent years in Fairhope, Alabama, the beautiful small city on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay from which Bill hails. His mother’s father, Dr. William Henry Evans, was a Baptist minister; his father’s father, Dr. William Cordell Mason, Sr. was the town dentist/doctor, and Bill spent many hours in their company. Though he felt pulled in both directions, toward ministry and medicine, a college professor opened his eyes to the meaning of the word “administration” as having Latin roots meaning TO – “ad” – SERVE – “ministrare.” The phrase and the meaning germinated in Bill’s brain as he moved into his adult life.

His formal career in health administration began as a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. State Department in the 1960s when he was assigned to the U.S. Agency for International Development, an initiative begun during the Kennedy Administration along with the Peace Corps as a way to help developing countries. He lived in several Asian countries, principally Vietnam, where he was aide de camp to The Hon. Ellsworth Bunker, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, stationed in the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. His assignment included planning and developing a new medical school and teaching hospital for the Vietnamese government. His years there coincided with some of the heaviest and deadliest fighting of the entire Vietnam War, including the terrible Tet Offensive.

Those years in Vietnam were a seminal experience for him, and two lifetime ambitions arose from that time: the establishment of the world-class Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville, and the Life Flight Helicopter Service of Baptist Medical Center. Both came directly from his involvement in the Vietnam war and the heartbreaking sight of the thousands of maimed and wounded children, and the transportation of the injured and dead Marines and Army soldiers from the Southeast Asian jungles to the combat field hospitals.

After leaving the State Department in 1969, he earned a Master’s degree in Health Administration from Trinity University in San Antonio, and then went to Africa during the early 1970s as president and CEO of the Baptist Medical Center in Mbeya, Tanzania, East Africa. While living there, he and his son climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, where, sitting on the very top of the mountain at dawn, they had the transcendent experience of watching the sun rise out of the Indian Ocean.

After four years in Africa, Bill was assigned the responsibility of designing and building another new Baptist Medical Center in the city of Bangalore in southern India, where he lived for another four years. There he built the new hospital into what has now become the leading teaching hospital in all of India. Adventuresome mountain climbers, he and his son climbed to Base Camp on Annapurna in Nepal. He and his family returned to the U.S. in 1978, where he became affiliated with Baptist Health in Jacksonville. In 1993 he married Juliette Baldwin Woodruff.

Upon retirement in 1998, he became Chairman of the Boards of Baptist Health and Baptist Health Foundation. Immediately addressing his “bucket list,” he served as Chairman of the Department of Graduate Studies in the College of Health at the University of North Florida, while earning a doctorate degree in Educational Leadership in 2002, writing his dissertation on the “Dimensions of Servant Leadership,” the principal that guided his entire career – that the leader is the servant of the servants – the chief executive officer is the servant of the physicians and nurses who serve the sick and the injured.

After teaching at UNF for several years with a joint appointment in the College of Health and the College of Business, he spent five years as president of the FSCJ Foundation and completed a scholarship endowment campaign for that college.

Continuing to relish retirement, he earned his private pilot’s license and flew the Lewis and Clark Trail to the Pacific, became a Master Gardener, sang with the River City Men’s Chorus, and kayaked the pristine rivers of North Florida with the Marsh Creek Kayakers, all the while traveling the globe with his wife Julie. Together they traveled extensively, visiting all seven continents.

He retired from the Boards of Baptist Health, Baptist Medical Center, and Wolfson Children’s Hospital after 35 years, while continuing to be deeply involved in Baptist Health Foundation.

Dr. Mason has been the recipient of many awards for leadership, some of the most notable of which are the Arthur Andersen International Award for Management Excellence presented in Melbourne, Australia, the Humanitarian Award of OneJax, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Jacksonville Business Journal in 2000. He was elected to the Jacksonville Business Hall of Fame in 2000. He was Chairman of the Florida Hospital Association in 1993, and Chairman of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce in 2000, Chairman of the Jacksonville Port Authority from 2004-2006, and Chairman of the Jacksonville Community Council, Inc. in 2011. He was a Mayoral appointment to chair of the Jacksonville Children’s Commission in 2012, and was president of the Rotary Club of Jacksonville (Downtown Rotary Club) in 2013. Leadership Jacksonville named him a Community Trustee in 2014.

All of his life Bill appreciated music and sang with his church choir for more than 40 years, singing in many notable musical events. He resumed playing the violin after a hiatus of more than 60 years, bravely performing with other beginners at retirement and senior centers. He chaired the Pipe Organ Committee to replace the pipe organ burned at his church in 2007.

Above all things, Bill enjoyed sitting on his back deck with Julie at the end of the day, listening to the quiet, listening to the birds, relishing “l’heure bleu” with their beautiful Siamese cat, and soaking in the loveliness, the multiple shades of green, the air, the ambiance of their charming, peaceful home, the site of so much family history, the marriages, births, and deaths of children and parents, holidays and celebrations, laughter and tears, proms, hoops, backyard picnics, bicycles, food for every soul.

He is survived by his wife, Juliette Baldwin Mason, his sister, Melinda Mason Means (Noble) of Duncan, OK, and by his brothers-in-law: Norman Lee Shaheen, San Antonio, TX; Richard Oran Baldwin, Jr., Winter Park, FL; and James Robert Baldwin, New Smyrna Beach, FL.

He is also survived by three children and two stepsons: Michael Cordell Mason (Deneice), Dallas, TX; Rebecca Mason Malone (Jay), South Bend, IN; Holly Melissa Mason (Chris Nelson), Asheville, NC.; Graham Thomas Woodruff (Marcus Franklin), Jacksonville, FL; and Richard Jeffries Woodruff (Caelyn Casanova), San Francisco, CA. He has 18 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

Dr. Mason was predeceased by his son Stephen Evans Mason (Jeanne Blackstock Moore), his sister Nancy Mason Shaheen (Norman), and Mona Holloway Mason, the mother of his children.

A memorial service will be held on Tuesday, August 6, at 4 p.m. in the Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church sanctuary. The family will receive guests in the Fellowship Hall immediately following the service.

Instead of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to one of the two institutions that had the most meaning in Bill’s life: the Bill and Julie Mason Endowed Fund at Baptist Health Foundation, 841 Prudential Dr, Ste 1300, Jacksonville, FL 32207, baptistjax.com/about-us/give (select Tribute or Memorial Gifts); or Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church, 4001 Hendricks Ave, Jacksonville, FL, 32207, habchurch.com/give.

Most of all, Bill would want you to give of yourself – when you see a need, get involved. When you see a problem, be part of the solution. Be an example of the servant leadership that guided his life.