Cass Wheeler
Board Member
M. Cass Wheeler has been chief executive officer of the American Heart Association since October 1997. He began his career with the association in 1973, at the Texas Affiliate in Austin where he was named vice president for field operations and later executive vice president. He came to the association’s National Center in Dallas in 1982 as chief operating officer. He assumed the position of senior vice president for field operations in 1996 and advanced to CEO in 1997. Under Wheeler’s leadership as CEO, the American Heart Association merged its 56 individual state and metropolitan affiliates into 8 regional affiliates and adopted a single corporate structure.
Wheeler is a past board chair of the National Health Council. He served as a member of the board of directors of Independent Sector where he chaired the both Audit Committee and Ethics and Accountability Committee, as well as serving on the Executive Committee. He served as co-convener of the Panel on the Non Profit Sector, an independent national panel on the nonprofit sector established at the request of the Senate Finance Committee to consider and recommend actions that will strengthen good governance, ethical conduct and effective practice of public charities and private foundations. Cass served on the President's Commission on Improving Economic Opportunity in Communities Dependent on Tobacco Production While Protecting Public Health. He also served on the board of the National Human Services Assembly and for nine years was on the board of Research!America, where he chaired the Awards Committee. He currently serves on the boards of Partnership for Prevention and the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids. He is the Chair of the Key Philanthropic Organizations Committee for the American Society of Association Executives, is on the Advisory Council of the Paul G. Rogers Society for Global Health Research, and the Advisory Council for Campaign for Public Health. In January 2008, Cass was appointed to serve on the Advisory Committee to the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by Secretary Leavitt of the Department of Health and Human Services.
In April of 2008 Cass provided keynote speech to the University of Mississippi Medical School and Georgetown University Law Center.
In September 2005, the National Human Services Assembly presented Wheeler with the Essence of Leadership Award for Excellence in National Executive Leadership. In 2006, 2007 and 2008 he was honored as one of the leaders selected for inclusion in NonProfit Times’ Power and Influence Top 50. In July 2007, he was named to World Pharmaceutical Frontiers’ first Pharma 40 – a list of the most influential people in the industry, as judged by industry experts.