Inducted in 2022
While a student at Will Rogers, Ron Woods played the trumpet and led the Round-Up Orchestra. Thanks to the skills he learned at Rogers, Ron attended the University of Tulsa on a full music scholarship.
Ron has been a successful leader in three careers: music, healthcare, and philanthropy. After TU graduation, Ron was hired as a music teacher at Webster High School where only 17 students were involved in music. He personally recruited more and after two years, two-thirds of Webster’s students were in Band, Orchestra, Chorus and Music Theory classes. Ron taught them all and even gave free lessons. He also played eleven years with the Tulsa Symphony and led the Natural Brass Company Band, performing throughout the region.
Ron and his late wife, Carole, realized the music life was not best for their family of four children, which led to his second career.
He was drawn to healthcare, a natural outlet for him to live out what would be his life motto; “Help others get what they want or need.” When a new Federal law allowed companies to self-insure, paying healthcare claims for employees, Ron founded the HealthCare Solutions Group to administer those plans for the employers. In 2000, Ron founded a related company, CareATC, which provides onsite medical clinics to employers and their employees all over the country. When Ron sold CareATC in 2019, it was changing the way healthcare is delivered for over 150 large employers in 35 states.
In his third career, Ron is Director of the Ron and Carole Woods Foundation. The Foundation helps local charities, including the WRHS Community Foundation, further their missions in the areas of poverty assistance and education, allowing Ron to continue to “Help Others Get What They Want or Need.”
