By Jud Fisher, President/CEO, Ball Brothers Foundation—
MUNCIE, IN — Ball Memorial Hospital has long been shaped by strong local leadership and a deep commitment to the communities it serves. Following the retirement of Dr. Jeff Bird, Art Vasquez has been named President of IU Health’s North Region, supporting Muncie and surrounding communities as part of a broader regional network.
Local leadership in Muncie remains central to the hospital’s work. Kreigh Cook, Chief Operating Officer of IU Health Ball Hospital will work closely with Dr. Ryan Johnston, Chief Medical Officer, and Melissa Hicks, Chief Nursing Officer, to guide day-to-day operations, patient care, and community engagement.
A lifelong East Central Indiana resident, Kreigh has spent the past eight years serving IU Health Ball Hospital in a variety of leadership roles.
In this Q&A, Kreigh reflects on his professional journey, his connection to the region, and his perspective on helping to steward an institution with nearly a century-long history.
You were raised in East Central Indiana and chose to return to the region after completing your education. What made it important for you to come back to build your career here—and how does that shape your approach to leadership at Ball Memorial Hospital?
I found it important to come back when I realized that East Central Indiana was a significant part of my purpose. I had a mentor challenge me to reflect on what energized me, identify my core values, and then take bold steps that brought me closer to my purpose. After completing that exercise, it was clear that living in, contributing to, and serving in East Central Indiana was essential for me.
Soon after making this realization, we moved back home after living in Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio during my education, and I started working at Ball Memorial Hospital. The connection between my purpose and Ball Memorial Hospital’s mission, vision, and values creates deep meaning in my work and leadership. As a result, daily tasks feel significant and connected to a larger purpose, and I am highly motivated to act, achieve, and give back to patients, families, and a region that played a significant role in shaping who I am, what I represent, and how I want to contribute.
Your background spans law, public health, and healthcare administration. You’ve spent the last eight years at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital in a variety of roles. What experiences during that time have been most formative as you’ve grown into hospital leadership?
Authentic connections with our team members, patients, families, and mentors have been the most formative experiences in my leadership journey. I make a concerted effort to round on teams and patients daily, and in doing so, I am consistently humbled by our talent and quickly connected to our cause. While often incidental, what these interactions reiterate to me as a healthcare leader, is that when you put the patient first, consistently consult those doing the work of healing, and incorporate your vision, values, and mission or cause into the decision-making process, good results tend to follow. Also, I’ve been fortunate to have excellent mentors throughout my career who have helped guide me through my leadership journey, and these experiences have shaped my approach.
As a result of these interactions and relationships, as a leader I’m most passionate about igniting potential in others, because over time I’ve come to understand the connection this has to my purpose, and the positive impact it can have on aspiring leader’s careers, our hospital, and our community.
Like many other parts of the country, East Central Indiana faces healthcare workforce challenges. Over the past decade, East Central Indiana has worked hard to build a stronger pipeline of healthcare workers—from bolstering physician training and nursing programs to developing new credential programs at the community college level. As you look ahead, where do you see the biggest challenges and opportunities on the healthcare workforce front?
I would start by emphasizing that East Central Indiana is fortunate to have partners like the Ball Brothers Foundation to help solve these complex issues and challenges, and we’ve made tremendous progress through countless innovative initiatives, that have resulted in students increasingly choosing to stay and serve. Despite tremendous progress, nursing, physician, and
direct care roles in respiratory therapy and imaging remain workforce challenges today. Nevertheless, work going on at Ball Hospital, Ball State University, Ivy Tech Community College, the IU School of Medicine, and multiple other regional educational institutions are creating healthcare workforce hubs that uniquely position us to be successful in the years to come.
The primary opportunity to grasp exists in strengthening these partnerships with regional institutions and connecting with students earlier. For example, in 2025 IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital had 80 student internships, 87 student job shadows, and healthcare career exploration events with high schools where we hosted 222 students in the Spring, and 285 in the Fall. This type of intentional and proactive activity and connection will be critical moving forward.
IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital has served this community for generations and is an important place in the lives of many East Central Indiana families. How do you think about stewarding an institution with such a long history while also helping preparing it for what comes next?
In stewarding an institution with such a long and rich history, while helping prepare it for what comes next, it will be critical that we stay true to our mission, our promise to patients, and our values, while diligently working towards our vision. Our mission or cause is to improve the health of those we serve, and our promise, which describes what we deliver: is to provide the best care for patients, designed with them. Our values describe the traits we need for success: Purpose, Excellence, Compassion, and Team. As we move into a new era of healthcare, with unique challenges, our vision of what we want to become is equally important.
We aspire to be the place where people want to work, where providers want to practice, and, most importantly, where patients want to go when they need healthcare services. We recognize that the path forward will be far from easy, but I know I speak for the collective team when I say we find solace and motivation in our cause and the vision of what we want to become.
Outside of work, you enjoy spending time with your family and coaching youth basketball. What have those experiences taught you about teamwork, leadership, or community that carry over into your professional life?
My family and the sport of basketball have played a key role in shaping who I am. The life lessons from these experiences have helped form my personal values, which hang above my desk, and that I review before starting each day. These values play a significant role in my professional life, and they include the following:
- Put God first and utilize the gifts he has provided to help others
- Family is a top priority
- Hustle
- Listen to understand – others know more
- Always remain humble
- Encourage others – you never know what they are going through
- Control the controllables
- Win the day!
Instill in my children these values that my parents and grandparents have taught me.
The History
Ball Memorial Hospital’s story is closely tied to the Ball family’s long-standing connection to East Central Indiana. In the early 1900s, members of the Ball family recognized the growing need for a public hospital in Muncie—a need that expanded as the community grew. In the early 1920s, Edmund Ball committed to helping fund a new hospital once state authorization was secured. Although he died in 1925, Edmund Ball provided for the hospital project in his will. Funds from his estate also helped establish Ball Brothers Foundation in 1926, and support for the hospital was among the foundation’s earliest grants.
Ball Memorial Hospital broke ground in 1927 and opened in 1929 with 142 beds, becoming a cornerstone of healthcare in the region. Over the decades, the hospital has continued to grow and evolve alongside the community it serves. Since the beginning, Ball Brothers Foundation has remained a partner in that work, supporting improvements and programmatic initiatives that strengthen patient care and carry forward the hospital’s legacy as a teaching institution. Over the past 50 years, Ball Brothers Foundation has invested more than $3 million in support of Ball Memorial Hospital, reflecting an ongoing commitment to strong local healthcare and the well-being of East Central Indiana. Today, the hospital is part of the Indiana University Health system and continues to serve families across the region.
About Ball Brothers Foundation
Ball Brothers Foundation is one of the state’s oldest and largest family foundations. Annually, the foundation pays out more than $8 million in grants to support arts and culture, education, the environment, health, human services, and public/society benefit. The Muncie-based private foundation gives priority to projects and programs that improve the quality of life in the foundation’s home city, county, and state.
