Three well-placed sources have confirmed to Channel 2’s Richard Belcher that Michael Young will announce his resignation during a special meeting of the Grady Corporation Board on Thursday morning.
Young was brought on to help turn around the financially troubled public hospital, but he has also ruffled a lot of feathers.
His departure will conclude a period of enormous change and some tumult at Grady.
But love him or hate him, Youngs supporters say Grady’s financial position has improved remarkably on his watch.
When he arrived in September 2008, Young was the first CEO hired after Grady’s day-to-day operations were turned over to a private, nonprofit corporation.
That change required a bruising political battle pushed by the business community, and Young himself brought a blunt approach to the job.
Critics charged he too often made remarks and displayed attitudes that were racially insensitive.
Among his most bitter critics were Fulton County Commissioners Bill Edwards and Emma Darnell — which complicated the hospital’s relationship with a government that provides millions of dollars to Grady each year.
Supporters say he was the turn-around agent Grady had to have — noting that since 2008 the bottom line has improved by $75 million through revenue growth and expense cuts and that patient satisfaction surveys are at all-time highs.
Grady Corporation Chairman Pete Correll emphasized the financial improvements when we broke the story last year that Young had been awarded a $298,000 bonus to go with his $615,000 salary.
We set Mike’s goals that said if you have a $25 million cash improvement in 2009 or 2008 that will be your target. We had a $60 million improvement, said Correll in an previous interview.
A Grady spokesman declined comment on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting and declined to say anything about whether the hospital’s CEO will announce his intent to leave.
