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Bill Gimson

Executive Director

William “Bill” Gimson is the Executive Director of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT). Mr. Gimson brings 35 years of program and administrative experience with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, from where he recently retired as the Chief Operating Officer. At the CDC he had oversight for more than 15,000 employees and an annual budget in excess of $10 billion and worked in partnership with the CDC director and executive leadership to implement a number of strategic initiatives, including re-engineering CDC’s administrative and organizational structure. Gimson, among other accomplishments, developed the first ever performance measures of CDC’s business indicators, executed an almost 4 million square foot capital improvement plan totaling $1.6 billion dollars, improved agency security and continuity of operations following 9/11, and assisted CDC and the Nation in preparing for an outbreak of pandemic influenza. Mr. Gimson was one of the first CDC employees to travel to Iraq in 2005, and then later in early 2007 under a USAID-funded project to provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Health in strengthening performance management for the Government of Iraq. He subsequently volunteered to serve from December 2007 through May 2008 on a U.S. Department of State Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) as the health section team lead and was assigned to Contingency Operating Base, Speicher (100 miles northeast of Baghdad). The PRT was paired with the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division (the Screaming Eagles). As the only civilian assigned to the health section, he lead a team of Civil Affairs Army Reservists working closely with the Iraqi Directorate of Health for the Province of Salah ad Din increasing access to healthcare for Iraqi citizens, forming a province-wide coalition to prevent cholera and helping cosponsor the largest conference of Iraq and U.S. health professionals to be held in the northern provinces of Iraq up to that time.As CPRIT’s executive director, Mr. Gimson is responsible for working with the CPRIT Oversight Committee to create and implement a strategic vision designed to enable the Institute to make its mark in the fight against cancer. He is also charged with developing and managing a new team – a dream team – of scientific, executive and operational staff that will develop the processes for soliciting, awarding and monitoring the performance of the very best prevention and research projects in the field. Mr. Gimson and the CPRIT team are currently focusing on an impartial review process directed by top scientists from outside of Texas to distribute taxpayer dollars; funded projects will be innovative and critically important to the field; the entire research spectrum will be supported – basic, translational, clinical and prevention – with the goal of fundamental discoveries that can be put into practice; ten percent of all funding will be directed at innovative and unique prevention services to help Texans; and new, superb talent will be recruited to the state.Mr. Gimson, who spent his formative years in Texas (Dallas & Houston), holds a master’s degree in business administration from Duke University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Bill and his wife, Susana have three children, William, Alex, and Gabrielle.