Interview with Carl Pollard, September 10, 2014

Interview Summary

Carl Pollard describes his early life, born on a farm to tenant farmers near Lancaster, Kentucky. He discusses several moves his family made during his early life between different farms before moving to Lancaster to attend school. Pollard talks about a job he had early in life bookkeeping for a stockyard. He says after high school graduation he entered University of Kentucky. He talks about various colleges he considered attending including Centre College and North Carolina. He says he hitchhiked to Lexington and enrolled without a major. Pollard discusses working his way through college at Kroger. He describes the process of signing up for interviews for recruiting with several Big 8 accounting firms. He says his first job was with Yeager, Ford & Warren as an accountant.

Pollard talks about traveling to Louisville with two classmates for interviews and testing before receiving a job offer from the accounting firm. He talks about the organization of the firm for which he worked, and his transition to working at Humana by virtue of an old family relationship at the firm. He discusses recalculating depreciation in a complicated tax case which led to his introduction to David Jones. He says the timing of the introduction coincided with Jones and Wendell Cherry deciding to build nursing homes, which led to his firm being hired to handle the accounting for that new business. Pollard describes the early growth of Heritage House Nursing Homes in Louisville and Lexington, and the process of reorganizing various partnerships into a single holding company. He talks about making partner with his firm in 1966 and the nursing home holding company going public the next year. He describes the complicated process of taking the renamed company Extendicare public.


Pollard talks about Humana's acquisition of the University of Louisville Hospital. Pollard talks about the process of hospital mergers and Humana's decision to transition to a managed care business model. Pollard talks about the shortage of talent after Galen Healthcare split from Humana. He says the hospital business also inherited all the debt and most of the assets. He discusses the divestiture of several hospitals in Florida and another company reorganization. Pollard describes how he arranged for the headquarters of the newly merged company to be in Louisville. He describes a subsequent merger with a company with headquarters in Nashville. He characterizes the movement of company headquarters as "not honorable."

Pollard says he is reluctant to express an opinion regarding the Affordable Care Act because the regulations for administering the act have not yet been drafted. He discusses his involvement in the horse industry through his association with Churchill Downs. Pollard says he is uncertain what advice to give new business students at University of Kentucky because he is retired from business. He discusses new technology frequently used in business such as email and texting, and he discusses changes in the accounting industry and the opportunities in that profession.

Interview Keyword

University of Kentucky Education--Kentucky Employment--Kentucky Consolidation and merger of corporations Churchill Downs (Louisville, Ky. : Racetrack)

Interview LC Subject

Accounting. Accountants. Humana, Inc. Hospitals--Administration

Interview Rights

All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the University of Kentucky Libraries.

Interview Usage

Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.