Joseph Anderson ’67 – 2022 St. Ignatius of Loyola Award for Distinguished Service

In the ’60s, when a young Joe Anderson was mowing lawns and doing maintenance work at the schools he attended in order to afford his education, other children from low-income families in Arizona had little access to affordable health care. Even though the federal government had introduced Medicaid in 1965 as a joint federal and state program, Arizona was the last state to add a Medicaid program, establishing one in 1982. And a little more than a decade after graduating from Brophy and Arizona State University, it was Joe Anderson leading the effort to create the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) which would manage Arizona’s struggling Medicaid program. Thanks to Joe’s work and that of his partner, Dr. Donald F. Schaller, Arizona was the first state to implement a Mandatory Managed Care model allowing for more robust care and better health care choices for Medicaid recipients while more efficiently managing the cost of the program.

Additionally, under Joe’s guidance, the new program extended Medicaid to cover children and pregnant women who live below the poverty level. Today, approximately half of Arizona’s children and babies born in the state are covered through AHCCCS and the program has become a model for state Medicaid systems around the country.

In 1986, Joe paired his personal interest in helping the underserved with his business acumen and, with Schaller, co-founded Schaller Anderson, a health care consulting firm which developed care management systems for large employers and state Medicaid programs. After growing it to more than 1,700 employees nationwide serving 1.3 million people, in 2007, the partners sold the company to Aetna.

Now retired from the health care industry and running Benovia Winery in Sonoma County, California, serving others remains front and center in Joe’s life. He and his family have been major supporters of the Maricopa Health Foundation (now Valleywise Health Foundation) and Barrow’s Neurological Institute as well as St. Francis Xavier Parish Elementary School and Anderson Hall. Joe sits on the advisory boards of Central Arizona Shelter Services and the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute. United Cerebral Palsy of Central Arizona honored Joe with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work supporting people with disabilities, and ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business honored him with the Stuart A. Westbury Jr. Community Leadership Award for outstanding leadership in the health care industry.

Beyond Arizona, Joe has been a trustee for ArchCare which fulfills the health care mission of the Archdiocese of New York and a recipient of ArchCare’s Florence Eisenberg Board Service Award. California communities have also been the recipients of the Anderson family’s philanthropy including the Sonoma County Fire Relief Fund after devastating wildfires and literacy programs in Sonoma County. The generosity of Joe and his family has touched people and places near and far.

On a recent podcast, Joe stated, “My greatest accomplishments, next to my family, are tied to improving the lives of others. This is a lifetime goal for which I thank my parents, the good sisters, and the Jesuits.” Joe, we thank you for tending those Catholic, Jesuit roots and growing into a man for others who has made such a difference in so many lives. Brophy College Preparatory is proud to present the 2022 St. Ignatius of Loyola Award for Distinguished Service to Joseph Anderson ’67.