Longtime health care leader William Cordell Mason, known throughout the community as Bill Mason, died July 2 at the age of 86.
Mason joined Baptist Health in 1978 and spent 20 years as president and CEO of Baptist Medical Center and Baptist Health.
Among his contributions were Wolfson Children’s Hospital and Life Flight, the area’s first helicopter ambulance service, at Baptist Medical Center; and Baptist’s expansion to include Baptist South and hospitals in Jacksonville Beach and Fernandina Beach.
A business leader, Mason was elected to the First Coast Business Hall of Fame in 2000.
His leadership positions included serving as chairman of the Florida Hospital Association in 1993; the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce, now JAX Chamber, in 2000; the Jacksonville Port Authority from 2004-06; Jacksonville Community Council Inc. in 2011; and the Jacksonville Children’s Commission in 2012.
Upon his retirement in 1998, he became board chairman of Baptist Health and the Baptist Health Foundation.
Mason also served in leadership at the University of North Florida and the Florida State College at Jacksonville Foundation.
Mason grew up in Fairhope, Alabama, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay.
He started his career in health administration as a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. State Department in the 1960s, living in several Asian countries, principally Vietnam.
His assignment included planning and developing a medical school and teaching hospital for the Vietnamese government, a time coinciding with some of the heaviest and deadliest fighting of the Vietnam War, including the Tet Offensive.
The establishment of Wolfson Children’s Hospital and Life Flight came from that involvement.
After leaving the State Department in 1969, he earned a master’s degree in health administration and then went to Africa as president and CEO of the Baptist Medical Center in Mbeya, Tanzania.
After four years, he was assigned to build a Baptist Medical Center in Bangalore, officially known as Bengaluru, in India, where he lived another four years.
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.
He is survived by his wife; three children and two stepsons; 18 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.