Today the Star Tribune reports that Stephen Hemsley, the CEO of UnitedHealth received $102 million in compensation in 2009. Earlier Huffington Post reported that he also holds $744 million in unexercised stock options.What kind of guy is Hemsley? Well, earlier he got caught backdating stock options that bilked stockholders, and had to return $190 million in options. He previously was Chief Financial Officer at Arthur Andersen, the firm that covered for Enron while it made off with grandma's retirement funds.
His bio at Wikipedia describes him as "a trustee of the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota, and as a trustee of Minnesota Public Radio."
Doesn't that say it all about Minnesota institutions? St Thomas is the Ann Coulter loving university in St Paul, and MPR is the Allina-protecting Pravda on the Mississippi, so it really is in keeping with the character of those two institutions to have a professional skimmer like Hemsley at the top of their organizations. Far from being atypical, Hemsley is representative of the kind of flexian plutocrats who run Minnesota's premier media, educational and social institutions.
UPDATE: Business Week says that Hemsley is a Trustee of Minnesota Public Radio, but MPR's website doesn't list him as one. Maybe he recently quit the board, or recently joined it - the trustee list on the MPR website is dated October, 2009. EVEN MORE: Well, now we know Hemsley was on the board of MPR at least from 2002 to 2004.
Note: This is Rob’s first post here. It is also cross-posted at his blog, The Triumph of Conservative Philanthropy.
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