Richard "Rick" Kneipper
Chief Administrative Officer & Co-founder

One might say that Rick Kneipper has a knack for being in the right place at the right time, but Kneipper, the eternal optimist, would attribute it to reaping the rewards of following your passion.

After graduation from Cornell's School of Law , Kneipper started with prestigious Wall Street law firm Chadbourne & Parke, where he became a partner. In New York , Kneipper was instrumental in the formation of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, a public interest law firm sponsored by major law firms in New York City and The Association of the Bar of the City of New York . His role was summarized in Lions in the Street, a book detailing major New York City law firms.

Kneipper later moved to Texas to become a partner with Jones Day one of the oldest, largest law firms in the world with more than 2,100 lawyers in 30 offices worldwide. But while Kneipper was focusing his law career on mergers, acquisitions, tender offers, private and public financings and corporate governance, his entrepreneurial passion led him to devote time to many diverse interests.

Kneipper focused his energy on creating a few entrepreneurial companies: HealthTech Diagnostics Corporation, a specialized clinical laboratory testing company for complex medical cases; HealthTech Development, a company engaged in the acquisition, development and commercialization of emerging biomedical technologies; and International Sourcing, an international information sourcing company. Additionally, Kneipper was one of the founders of FilmDallas, a company that distributes Academy Award®-winning independent films, including Kiss of the Spider Woman. He is the co-founder of Dallas ' Adopt-A-Monument program, which is now part of the Dallas Foundation.

But it was a serendipitous plane ride in 1991 that offered Kneipper the opportunity to blend his entrepreneurial interests with his background in law, business and healthcare. On a business trip, he met Charles "Chick" Young, business technology pioneer, and the two formed a business relationship soon thereafter. From that success, the two later hatched an idea to merge their interests into a company that would use information technology and improved business processes as strategic enablers to improve healthcare services and reduce costs through aggregation, consolidating and sharing best practices and standardization. Together, they founded PHNS in 1999, where Kneipper puts his unique background to work as Chief Administrative Officer.

In addition to many civic and community involvements, Kneipper is a member of the Board of Managers of Parkland Health and Hospital System in Dallas, Texas, is on the Board of Trustees, Executive and Audit Committees of the Texas Trees Foundation, the Advisory Board of the Appalachian College Association and the Board of Advisors of School at Visual Arts of the University of North Texas and the Executive Education Advisory Council of the University of Texas at Dallas School of Management. He also authors a twice-monthly column in FYA, a newsletter sponsored by TrendLeaders Connection.

Kneipper and his wife live in Dallas and have two grown children. In his limited downtime, Kneipper enjoys hunting, fishing and welding totem poles and other metal sculptures, a collection of which his wife has relegated to their backyard.