Woody Myers
Woodrow Augustus Myers Jr. is an American physician and politician from Indiana. He served as health commissioner for Indiana and New York City. He was the Democratic nominee for governor of Indiana in the 2020 election, losing to incumbent Republican Eric Holcomb.
Early life and education
Myers is from Indianapolis. His father was a landscaper, and his mother was a school principal. Myers graduated from Shortridge High School when he was 16 years old, Stanford University when he was 19, and Harvard Medical School when he was 23. He also attended Stanford's Graduate School of Business and earned a Master of Business Administration.Career
Myers served as an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and quality assurance chairman at San Francisco General Hospital.Health commissioner
In 1985, Governor Robert D. Orr selected Myers as Indiana's state health commissioner. When he took the job, he weighed but went on a liquid diet. After one year, he weighed. As Indiana's state health commissioner, he supported Ryan White, a teenager with AIDS who had not been permitted to attend school, in his legal challenge against the school board. Myers also supported a law that called for recording the names of those infected with HIV/AIDS and quarantining "recalcitrant carriers" of the disease. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan appointed Myers to the President's Commission on the HIV Epidemic. He resigned later that year amid infighting.In 1990, Mayor of [New York City|Mayor] David Dinkins appointed Myers as New York City's health commissioner. He resigned in 1991, in part due to opposition to some of his HIV/AIDS policies. Myers returned to Indianapolis and worked for Wellpoint, Corizon Health, and Blue Cross Blue Shield.