UW-Whitewater graduate Quint Studer may be one of the most successful alumni of the university, but also one of the most generous. The Warhawk alumnus is the owner of many different businesses including Healthcare Plus Solutions and two minor league baseball teams. Studer also created the Studer Group, a healthcare consulting firm which he sold for $325 million in 2015.
Studer’s professional career has been dynamic to say the least, with experience in education, the healthcare industry, city development and minor league baseball ownership.
Despite the fact that he now resides in Pensacola, Florida, Studer is still an avid supporter of the Warhawk baseball team. Each spring UW-Whitewater hosts a spring tournament at the Blue Wahoos’ stadium in Pensacola thanks to Studer, who also donates a significant amount of money to the program each year.
“I think [Whitewater’s] baseball coach is phenomenal,” Studer said. “I talked to John [Vodenlich] one time and said, why don’t you see if you can have a tournament here. Bring the team down like spring training. They start the season and it’s so cold up north.”
“Our situation down there is really special,” head coach John Vodenlich said in a previous interview. “It’s with [Studer’s] generosity that he invites us down to use the stadium, it’s a first class facility.”
About eight or nine teams are invited to the Warhawks’ spring trip each year. This year’s trip is scheduled for March 11-18, and will include Warhawk matchups against Grinnell College, Carroll University, Sewanee, Edgewood College, LeTourneau University and Huntingdon College throughout the week.
Whitewater experience
Studer was born in La Grange, Illinois, just less than 100 miles southeast of Whitewater. His parents owned a cottage in Turtle Lake just outside the Delavan area where Studer and his family would spend a significant amount of time in the summer.
Every year on the Fourth of July, he said, his family would attend the Fourth of July Celebration at Starin Park in Whitewater. Studer’s intimate relationship with the area played a role in his decision to attend the university.
“I was really familiar with southern Wisconsin and I was really attracted to southern Wisconsin,” he said. “So, I think the fact that it was in southern Wisconsin [and] I love that area was the reason I went to Whitewater.”
Overall, the school was a good fit for Studer who embraced the culture and appreciated its smaller feel.
“I think what Whitewater did for me, a student who was not that great a student, was the personal touch,” Studer said. “I don’t think I would have survived in a big school where you’re sitting in a classroom with 300 people.”
He graduated from the university in 1973 with a bachelors and masters in special education and began his career in education – first at Janesville Parker High School and later at Harvard High School in Harvard, Illinois.
From education to healthcare
After several years as a special education teacher, Studer sought out help for an alcohol abuse issue that he had struggled with. After attending several alcohol counseling meetings, it created an opportunity for him to give back in the community and share his story.
“When I was about 31 years old, I ‘hit the bottom’ is what they call it,” Studer said. “I realized that I needed help… I used to go to meetings at this little drug and alcohol hospital in Janesville and I noticed they were looking for someone to work in the community.”
Already with experience in the school districts, Studer took on the task of traveling southern Wisconsin to talk with and counsel high school students about drug and alcohol abuse.
Eventually this led to his entry into the healthcare industry, which began at Mercy Health in Janesville as the director of marketing and eventually the senior vice president of business development.
In 1993, Studer became the chief operating officer at Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago and his career in health exploded. In just six months, Studer raised the hospital’s patient satisfaction from three to 73% and gained national recognition across the industry for his success.
Pensacola
With his success at newfound heights, Studer accepted a position as an administrator at Baptist Hospital in Pensacola in 1996. Soon after he was promoted to president of the hospital. He served as president at the hospital until 2000 when he decided to focus on the development of the Studer Group, which he founded during his time at Baptist.
Shortly after is when Studer decided to purchase the Pensacola Pelicans and pursue professional sports ownership.
“I’ve always loved baseball and all sports,” he said. “I read in the paper that we were getting a minor league baseball team. I didn’t really understand minor league baseball, so I went to a game, I liked it and then I read they were being sold and I bought the team for really just taking over their debt.”
Studer spent the next several years “just trying to survive” with the independent baseball team. It was a struggle for them to be successful with few teams in the area to compete against, but Studer made it work with frequent trips to the Midwest where there were more teams to play.
“In 2005, we started getting the concept of building a stadium downtown,” he said. “That was a real traumatic thing, because I’ve never been through something like that, a referendum, people saying it would never work.”
Fortunately for Pensacola, Studer said, “it did work.”
With the new stadium in place, the Pensacola Pelicans eventually rebranded to the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, an AA team affiliated with the Miami Marlins.
Studer’s generosity to the city didn’t stop there, with over $100 million invested into the downtown area, he and his wife made numerous developments including a brand new YMCA as well as the Studer Children’s Hospital.
Studer’s keys to success
As a successful businessman in many fields, Studer has had to hone in on the recipe for success. The first trait that he encourages young people to adopt is self-awareness.
“Personal development depends on self-awareness and it also makes you teachable,” he said.
He also said it is important for someone to be kind to themselves in order to achieve success.
“I find people are usually way too hard on themselves,” Studer said. “So I tell people you don’t want to make excuses for yourself, but you don’t want to beat yourself up all the time, that just wears on your energy.”
Finally, he said, it is vital for someone to take control of their own development within their field.
“Don’t wait for someone to develop you… tell the person that you want to be developed, that you can handle feedback,” Studer said. “Then say, what are some areas of improvement and any suggestions for my development. I think you have to control your own destiny and control your own development.”
