DR. DELOS ‘TOBY’ COSGROVE

President and chief executive officer, Cleveland Clinic

“One day, the guy below deck announced that it was a sewer and he wasn’t going down there anymore, so I took his job. My nickname was Sewer Man, and ever since, America’s Cup boats have that position.”

“We had 100 beds and two doctors and evacuated 22,000 sick and wounded. On my days off, I flew combat missions and worked in a Vietnamese hospital.”

“I was a pretty good student in a not very academically inclined high school.”

“I was a history major. It was the only thing I could major in, because my grades were so bad in everything else.”

“One day I was reading the newspaper to a teacher I was dating, and she said, ‘You’re dyslexic.’ She was right.”

“Heart surgery is an athletic event, and I was getting to the point where perhaps I needed to stop. I was considering venture capital, and then the CEO announced his retirement and asked me to throw my hat in.”

“They were doing 3,000 coronary bypasses a year, so I instantly became one of the busiest heart surgeons in the country.”

Performing surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, 2006

Demonstrating the blood conservation technology he invented, 1980. Today, Cosgrove has 30 patents for surgical products.

Providing health services to families in Vietnam, 1968

With his wife and daughters, 2000