Merger of Three Local Blood Centers Complete

Landmark cooperative effort further ensures safe, available and affordable blood supply

MIAMI / ORLANDO / ST. PETERSBURG – January 27, 2012 – The merger of three of Florida’s independent, not-for-profit blood centers, Community Blood Centers of Florida, Inc. (CBCF), Florida’s Blood Centers, Inc. (FBC) and Florida Blood Services, Inc. (FBS) is complete and they are now one organization.  The merged organization will operate as OneBlood, Inc.

Don Doddridge, who has been CEO of FBS for the past 10 years, will lead OneBlood as its Chief Executive Officer.  Bud Scholl, CEO of CBCF has been named Chief Integration Officer and Mike Pratt, Interim CEO of FBC has been tapped as Chief Technical Officer.  

A twelve member board of directors will oversee the new blood center.  Rick Walsh, chairman of the board for Florida’s Blood Centers, has been named the chairman of the OneBlood board of directors.  

“As a community asset it is our responsibility to ensure the blood is available, safe and affordable for our hospital partners and their patients,” said Rick Walsh. “The merger will allow us to operate more efficiently and effectively.  As a result of the merger, the blood supply will be more stable, donor outreach will be more effective and we anticipate it will allow us to better control costs and help mitigate price increases to our hospital partners,” Walsh said.

The new governance structure of OneBlood also requires continued oversight on a local level; therefore, the three local boards of directors will remain and will provide guidance to ensure each area is meeting the needs of their communities. The local boards have been instrumental throughout the merger process and their knowledge and talent will continue to be important in the overall success of OneBlood.

The new organizational structure has been established and will consist of four operating regions: North, West, Central and South. A virtual headquarters has been created around Centers of Excellence and a shared corporate leadership structure is in place. “Each blood center had its own unique strengths and it has been our goal from the beginning to leverage best practices in this historic merger of equals,” said Don Doddridge, CEO of OneBlood.  Officers of the shared services have been named and will lead the Centers of Excellence from the various operating regions.  The Centers of Excellence are:

•    Human Resources and Information Technology – Located in Lauderhill (South Region)
•    Finance & Administration and Marketing  & Communications – Located in Orlando (Central Region)
•    Quality Assurance & Regulatory and Scientific, Medical and Technical (SMT) – Located in St. Petersburg (West Region)

Integration into the new organizational structure will happen over the next several months.  In the meantime, regional operations will remain as they do today with no interruptions and continued excellent customer service while the integration phase is underway.

The service area of OneBlood includes the Tampa Bay area, South and Southeast Florida, the Orlando Metro area and surrounding Central Florida counties, parts of Southwest Florida, Pensacola and Tallahassee and some parts of Southern Georgia and Alabama. OneBlood currently serves more than 200 hospitals and health facilities and employs approximately 2,700 professionals.   

The merged organization will unveil its new logo, integrate new signage and launch a new website later this year. While the new website is in development merger information can be found at www.oneblood.org.