ALUMNI
Each Day
IS A GIFT Stan State alumna Pam Kehaly conquered early challenges to reach the top of her field. BY LORI GILBERT A job lead from a friend led Stan State graduate Pam Kehaly into the health insurance business, two years after she earned her business administration degree in 1983. That claims supervisor position at Blue Cross launched a career that enabled Kehaly to apply her business skills. It also allowed her to pursue her greater passion of helping people. Kehaly recently combined that passion with inspiration from her mother — who raised her as a single parent — when she established a scholarship fund at Stan State to support students in the School of Nursing or College of Business Administration who were raised in a single-parent household. As president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona since
November 2017, she is dedicated to providing quality health care to everyone in the state. It’s a role she accepted after spending seven years as president and general manager of Anthem Blue Cross of California. Such a mission — seeing to the wellbeing of so many — can’t help but spill over into her personal life. The motto she passed on to her two grown sons, Trevor and Ryan, is borrowed from Nickelback: “Each day’s a gift and not a given right.” “I encourage them to appreciate each day and live it to its fullest,” Kehaly said. “We have a finite number of days on this earth, and each day is precious and should not be squandered or wasted.”
To that end, she makes the most of her time away from work. She counts Sunday family dinners with her husband, Bill Kehaly — a technology entrepreneur she met at Stan State — her sons and daughter-in-law “the highlight of each week” because it’s “most fulfilling to spend time with family.” Kehaly balances family life with a rich and challenging career. She was recognized as one of 2018’s Most Influential Women and Most Admired Leaders by AZ Business Magazine and the Phoenix Business Journal, respectively, and is highly sought by agencies for positions on their boards of directors. She also serves on the advisory board of the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at the University of Southern California and is a member of the board of directors for Arizona Multiple Sclerosis Foundation, Greater Phoenix Leadership, UNS Energy, T-Gen and HealthCorps. Here’s a look at how Kehaly, who started working as a 12-year-old cleaning houses and selling carpet cleaner at flea markets, rose to the top of her field. Pam Kehaly and Dr. Oz team up to raise the standard of health in Arizona.
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STAN MAGAZINE
