Through Support of Students, Tom Gordon Builds the 'Family' Culture He Views as Essential to Business Success

Two Gordon-Levin endowed fellowship funds at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health are among the ways the FSPH lecturer and former healthcare management executive helps jump-start the careers of future leaders. 

Tom Gordon remembers telling his college classmates that if he ever had the opportunity to run a company, he would run it like a family.

Tom Gordon

“They laughed at me,” Gordon recalls, smiling. “They said, ‘That doesn’t work in business.’”

Gordon’s career suggests otherwise. For 22 years, he served as executive vice president and CEO of a thriving medical group, Cedars-Sinai Medical Network Services. “We were successful not because I overpaid the members of my team — I wish I could have — but because I cared about them, they cared about me, we supported one another, we had open conversations, and as a result, people wanted to be there,” says Gordon, who continues to serve as advisor to Cedars’ emeritus CEO, and as chair of the Cedars-Sinai Board of Counselors.

For more than three decades, Gordon has also made his mark as one of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s leading champions — serving as a lecturer in the Department of Health Policy and Management; a member of UCLA Fielding’s Board of Advisors; and a mentor and confidant to current and former students. In doing so, he’s followed the same ethos that made him an influential figure in healthcare management: cultivating what he refers to as a “family” of FSPH students and graduates, who support and consult with each other and with Gordon as they advance in their careers. 

Many of those students have had their careers jump-started by financial support from two endowed fellowship funds established by Gordon and his wife, Edna — herself a devoted philanthropist, who sits on the board of the Dream Street Foundation for children with life-threatening diseases — in conjunction with longtime family friend and Los Angeles land developer Donald S. Levin. The Levin-Gordon Health Policy and Management Fellowship Endowed Fund and the Levin-Gordon Executive MPH Fellowship Endowed Fund have combined to support the education and career development of 11 outstanding UCLA Fielding students in the Department of Health Policy and Management’s MPH and Executive MPH programs, setting them on the trajectory to leadership positions in healthcare management. Through these endowments, students — and, by extension, the populations they go on to serve — will continue to benefit for generations to come.

Gordon believes his very existence is a miracle — his parents survived Nazi occupation during World War II, when most of those around them didn’t. They immigrated to the U.S. from Berlin when Gordon was 3, and raised him with the notion that it was his responsibility to return his good fortune by supporting others. 

“This is my way of giving back — mentoring people, helping them in their careers, and supporting them in their education — and it means the world to me to see them succeed,” Gordon says. “These are individuals who are devoting themselves to positions that will improve the population’s health, and they deserve that support.”

Gordon has impacted the lives of countless UCLA Fielding students dating back to the mid-1990s, when the late Dr. Paul Torrens, a prominent FSPH professor of health policy and management, asked Gordon to serve as a preceptor for his students (Gordon began lecturing in the department the following year). He brought in more than two dozen students as interns, many of whom went on to work at Cedars and remain close to their former mentor. 

Students supported by the endowed fellowship funds over the last decade have gone on to leadership roles in a variety of healthcare management environments:

• Brandon Fernandez-Comer (EMPH ’20) is now CEO of CRI-Help, Inc., a Los Angeles-based substance-disorder treatment facility. He’s been featured as an expert panelist for UCLA’s Integrated Substance Abuse Programs; serves on the boards of the California Association of Alcohol and Drug Program Executives and the California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals; and is a member of the Substance Abuse Prevention and Control Provider Advisory Committee for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
   
• Danielle McLaughlin (EMPH ’21) has ascended to the position of director of clinical operations, patient access, and supportive care for cancer services at UC San Diego Health. In that role, McLaughlin oversees seven oncology clinics and seven infusion centers, including all non-nursing roles across these sites. She has shared operational insights and best practices nationally — presenting, for example, at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network annual conference on patient navigation models and access to care.
   
• Kyle Horne (EMPH ’22) is the first to hold the position of manager of sustainability at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. In that role, Horne leads the development of a strategic framework that supports the institution’s long-term goals around operational resilience, resource stewardship, and community well-being. He collaborates with departments across the hospital to identify opportunities for measurable improvement in the management of energy, waste, water, and materials — ensuring alignment with healthcare quality and fiscal responsibility.
   

Maite Medina (EMPH ’26), recipient of a Levin-Gordon fellowship for the 2025-26 academic year, is poised to follow the leadership path of Fernandez-Comer, McLaughlin, Horne, and so many of the other students supported by the endowed fellowship funds. As a bilingual district public health nurse representing Service Planning Area 5 for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Medina specializes in communicable disease management and outbreak response. As a proud Mexican immigrant and first-generation college student, she has sought to advance health equity and access to care through her work.

A registered nurse since 2016 and a public health nurse since 2018, Medina enrolled in UCLA Fielding’s EMPH program to advance her education and lay the groundwork for new leadership opportunities. “My EMPH education has opened doors to so many diverse opportunities that not all nurses are able to access,” Medina says. “Through everything I’ve learned about quality improvement, operations, and how leadership can transform healthcare systems, I’m excited to blend my new MPH skills with my clinical skills as a nurse in ways that will best serve the communities that need it most.”

For financial reasons, Medina needed to continue working while pursuing her MPH. “I knew enrolling at UCLA Fielding was a good investment for me, but getting this scholarship has really made a difference in lessening the financial impact, and it feels great to be recognized for my dedication to the program,” she says. “Taking Tom Gordon’s class is great. He’s so warm and supportive. I’ve already gone to him for professional advice.”

Gordon teaches the class on leadership and culture in UCLA Fielding’s EMPH program. “I’m of the opinion that leadership is everything,” he says. “I don’t care how smart you are; if you can’t run a company, you’re not going to make it.”

In the class, he encourages his students to engage in “crucial conversations” on topics people tend to be reluctant to bring up, as well as “trusting your gut” and not being afraid to make hard decisions. Students bring up problems they’re having in the workplace and receive advice from their classmates. 

In the process, Gordon is building a sense of family within the student groups he teaches — the same culture he insists is an integral part of business success.

“I want these students to really get to know each other as a cohort,” he says. “We have to have each other’s back. We have to be able to talk to each other. That’s what I’m selling, and it’s working. I’m watching these young people move up the ladder of success.”