JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA
diversity—is his understanding of
the corporate culture and his deep
commitment to inclusiveness.
“The business case for us at Blue
Cross and Blue Shield of Florida
requires a much broader approach
to dealing with our diverse market
… Some of our future challenges
will be to further address the delivery of care-management programs
that improve healthcare disparities
and … developing future talent
across all dimensions of diversity,”
he says, as well as “elevating the difficult discussions around diversity
throughout the organization.”
Gallegos takes his business acumen and passion for the subject to
another level as the new president
of the First Coast Diversity Council,
an organization of Jacksonville
companies that share diversity best
practices and work to enhance the
area’s attractiveness to employees.
“My involvement with boards is
focused on our youth,” he says. “It
allows me to give back as a mentor
what someone did for me years
ago that helped change my life’s
direction.”
Gallegos left his childhood home
of El Paso, Texas, when he was 17.
College wasn’t an option for his
family so he joined the Navy, where
he says an officer reached out and
“coached me into believing that I
could accomplish greater things
with the confidence that I never
knew existed in me. He instilled in
me a sense of purpose, leadership,
commitment, teamwork and quality that formed the foundation that
I live by to this day.”
Gallegos went on to the
University of North Florida, where
he obtained a master’s degree in
public administration. He joined
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of
Florida 16 years ago, where he has
mentored many junior people.
“The officer I mentioned earlier told me that my job during
our mentoring partnership was to
take full accountability for my own
development,” he says. “He also
said that as I became a more experienced leader, my job was to then
develop leadership skills in others.
This is one quality I hope to continue to practice.”
Aetna’s Frank Cobbin
CREATING A HEALTHIER
JACKSONVILLE
W
hen Frank Cobbin first
moved to Jacksonville
almost 25 years ago, he
stood out. As a Black executive, he
was, in his own words, “a big deal.”
The community wasn’t cosmo-
politan, and most of the businesses
didn’t “get” diversity.
Today, the city is multicultural
and vibrant, and business leaders
are working together to attract
and retain diverse talent. As for
Cobbin, senior vice president of
service operations for Aetna
(one of DiversityInc’s 25
Noteworthy Companies), he has a
long history of involvement in the
local community.
“I live here. I’m a member
of this community first and an
Aetna employee second,” says
the Cleveland, Ohio, native. That
community involvement has
included leadership positions
at the Jacksonville Chamber of
Commerce, as well as several
other state and local community associations, including the
University of North Florida
Business Advisory Council.
“As far back as I can remember,
my parents—my mother, specifically—hammered into us that we
had a responsibility to be actively
engaged in the community. Both
of them are gone now but I operate
off the mode that my mother is
still watching me,” recalls Cobbin,
whose mother was a pediatric
nurse and whose father worked
in the steel mills in Youngstown,
Ohio. Cobbin was the first in his
family to go to college.
He came to Jacksonville when
he was working for AT&T, No.
22 on The 2008 DiversityInc Top
50 Companies for Diversity® list.
He joined Aetna in 1999 after
the company bought his then-employer, Prudential HealthCare.
Today, his area oversees 14,000
of Aetna’s 36,000 employees,
handling operations for members
and providers on their medical,
dental, pharmacy or behavioral
health plans.
“The best customer-service
divisions are very diverse ones,” he
says. “Our customers are diverse
and have numerous ways of looking at issues. You cannot do that
well if you don’t understand it.”
And how does community
service—both Cobbin’s and his
executives’—benefit the company? “The community sees Aetna is
helping to create a more viable
economy and a healthier community—and they will remember
that,” he says.
