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Profile: William 'Billy' Brown

New Position: Executive director, University Community Hospital Foundation, Tampa. Previous Position: Director, planned giving, Asbury Foundation, Gaithersburg, Md.

By Times Staff Writer
Published March 27, 2006

As the newly appointed executive director of the University Community Hospital Foundation, William "Billy" Brown has spent the past month "out and about," getting acquainted with the Tampa Bay area's philanthropic community.

Brown is in charge of raising money for the 431-bed hospital and "raising awareness in the community through education and information to potential givers and people who want to know about the projects University Community Hospital is undertaking," Brown said.

With a staff of five, Brown also will continue the fundraising efforts for the new Pepin Heart Hospital, part of the University Community Health network.

"The way I operate is based on somewhat of a different approach," he said. "The hospital says, "We have these needs; please go out and find someone to fund them.' My job is to establish a relationship model," not just raise funds, he said.

And that's one of the key motivators for Brown. "The part I enjoy the most (is) the relationships with people I've had a chance to meet," he said.

Brown said he thinks everyone is philanthropic at heart. "My job is really . . . trying to bring an individual and the institution together so that in the end, they will feel good about each other."

A native of Chattanooga, Tenn., Brown earned a bachelor's degree in 1984 at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, majoring in communications, public relations and broadcast journalism. He later earned a master's degree in philanthropy and development, in 1999, at St. Mary's University in Winona, Minn.

He began his fundraising career in 1984 at his alma mater in Chattanooga, in the development office. Brown also reported on many of the college's sports events on regional Tennessee radio stations.

In 1988, Brown took his first position at a hospital, becoming vice president of the Lexington Medical Center Foundation in Columbia, S.C. Two years later, he relocated to Florida to launch the Leesburg Regional Medical Center Foundation.

"We lived in Lady Lake, truly a speck on the map," he said.

While in Leesburg, Brown was recruited as director of the Hospice Foundation of Lake and Sumter counties, where he stayed until 1996. That year, he joined the Asbury Foundation in Gaithersburg, Md., as director of planned giving.

Brown, 47, said he plans to relocate his family to Tampa and is looking for a new residence. He and his wife, Haven, have a daughter, Jordan, 20, and a son, Collin, 17.

In his spare time, Brown said he plays a lot of golf, "a requisite for being a fundraiser." Brown said he also enjoys running charity races, as many as 15 so far, as a way of supporting other nonprofit organizations' fundraising projects.

Brown said he also does quite a bit of professional speaking, addressing fundraising professionals at conferences from Rhode Island to Alaska. "It's a way for me to give back to the profession that I truly enjoy," he said.

[Last modified March 25, 2006, 03:30:08]