Avon, Colo., Entrepreneur Who Created Preferred-Provider Industry Stays Busy.

Byline: Andy Vuong

Dec. 29--AVON, Colo.--Richard Rogel isn't a household name, but he's a pioneer of an industry that affects most households.

In 1982, amid a healthcare crisis, Rogel created a company that made it easier and cheaper for people to receive medical care. It was the first preferred-provider organization in Michigan and one of the first PPO plans in the nation.

Rogel sold Preferred Provider Organization of Michigan to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan in 1997. The deal made him a millionaire, as he puts it, more than 100 times over.

"That's what happens when you create an industry," Rogel, 54, said in a recent interview at his 10,000-square-foot home in a gated community in Avon.

He moved to Colorado shortly after selling the PPO. Though he's financially set for life, Rogel is deeply involved in business pursuits, nonprofit ventures and national politics.

His Avon-based investment firm, Tomay Inc., has stakes in about a dozen firms, including a Norwalk, Conn., e-learning company named Quelsys and a Chicago-based Internet coupon distributor, CoolSavings. His latest venture, Mobile Path Services Inc., aims to cut the time it takes to receive biopsy results from days to hours.

In 1998, Rogel co-founded The Youth Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides educational and recreational programs for kids in Lake and Eagle counties.

Rogel is also a money player behind Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman's Democratic presidential bid. Rogel serves on the campaign's finance committee and lends his private jet to Lieberman.

Rogel is co-chairman of his alma mater's fundraising campaign. He pledged $22 million to the University of Michigan in 1998, the college's largest-ever donation dedicated exclusively to scholarships.

"He has an enormous energy level," said Jerry May, vice president for development at the University of Michigan. "He has a very diverse and broad set of interests." Rogel grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Michigan in 1970 with a degree in business administration.

After working for a few years in industries from accounting to real estate, Rogel and an executive from a building company he worked for started their own construction business in Michigan. When the economy was struggling in 1974, Rogel and his partner decided to expand to other industries.

"We tried to be counter-cyclical and bought a medical clinic," Rogel said. "It was not counter-cyclical." In 1975, Rogel and his partner split up. Rogel kept the clinic. His partner got the building business.

"I had no money, and he was certain that I wouldn't be able to make the payments (on the clinic) and he'd get it back," Rogel said.

Rogel did manage to keep the fledgling clinic running, working as a real estate consultant to make ends meet.

In 1982, as health-care costs surged, Rogel came up with the idea to start PPO of Michigan. He launched the company with two doctors and a marketing employee.

"We worked literally around my dining-room table," Rogel said. "I remember one of the guys joking, 'When we're millionaires, we'll joke that our office was your dining-room table.' And it was." Rogel spent nine months gathering data about the health-care industry, going from office to office asking doctors what they charged for certain procedures.

The company signed up its first doctors in August 1983; the first corporate clients followed in March 1984.

"As the company grew slowly, I remember sitting in my office thinking, 'I wonder if we'll ever get 10,000 claims?' " Rogel said.

When he sold the company, it processed 18,000 claims a day, had 1.3 million people under coverage and had 13,000 to 14,000 physicians in its network.

"Rich's drive, ambition and tireless energy" are the keys to his success, said longtime business partner Jay Levin.

Rogel's success places him among Colorado's super-rich residents, but he is very different from many of his peers.

He doesn't hit the society circles. He counts controversial rapper Eminem and reggae star Sean Paul among his favorite artists. He owns a jet but doesn't do much leisure traveling. "I'm done being a tourist," he said.

Rogel's goals are now to get Mobile Path, a joint venture with Levin, off the ground and to hit a University of Michigan fundraising record of more than $1.4 billion.

Also among his top priorities is getting Lieberman elected president.

"He's impeccably honest," Rogel said of Lieberman, whom he met in the early 1990s when both served on the board of trustees for the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. "It's amazing how he'll stick by his principles."

In addition to letting Lieberman use his jet, Rogel has been active in fundraising events and introducing Lieberman to politicians in Colorado and Michigan.

"He's been a very good friend to Sen. Lieberman and has been a very active supporter, both in Colorado and in Michigan," said Tovah Ravitz-Meehan, a Lieberman campaign spokeswoman.

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(c) 2003, The Denver Post. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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