2025 Outstanding Directors: Tom Olson
Much of Tom Olson’s board service is driven by his admiration for physicians and caregivers. That admiration is deeply personal. His younger sister, Carol, developed Type 1 diabetes at age 18. She passed away at age 42 of heart failure while awaiting a kidney transplant. Not long afterward, Olson began donating in his sister’s name to the University of Minnesota, where she had received her care.
Olson has also volunteered his time and financial expertise to the board of the University of Minnesota Physicians (M Physicians for short). “I got to know physicians and the personal contributions they make to their profession, research, and patient care,” he says. “It became more and more compelling to me to support these people who give their lives to saving lives and making lives better.”
Olson joined the M Physicians board of directors in 2013. He’d become acquainted with the organization through his previous service on the board of the Minnesota Medical Foundation, which raised funds for the university’s medical school and its students. (It merged with the University of Minnesota Foundation in 2013.)
Besides providing services to health systems across the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota, M Physicians owns and operates specialty and family medicine clinics, employing more than 1,500 physicians, 500 advanced practice providers, and 2,500 staff. It also contributes a large portion of its operating revenue to support the University of Minnesota Medical School’s research and education.
The M Physicians board comprises 12 faculty-physicians and six “community” members who are neither physicians nor University of Minnesota employees. Community members “bring a business perspective to the board,” Olson says. Even though it is attached to a higher-ed institution, M Physicians “is a business—it’s a big business,” Olson says, with revenue and expenses requiring careful management. “So there needs to be some business thinking attached to it.”
A CPA early in his career, Olson rose to executive positions in finance and mortgage banking. As co-owner of Minnetonka-based Prime Mortgage Corp., Olson oversaw 200 employees and more than $1 billion in annual originations. He retired when Fargo-based Bell State Bank & Trust acquired Prime Mortgage in 2013.
Olson has chaired M Physicians’ audit committee and still serves on it. He’s also a member of the board’s executive governance and executive compensation committees. According to Olson, a key role that M Physicians community board members play is supporting the CFO, William Sibert. “I think it’s good for them to hear us ask questions of the CFO and support what the CFO is doing,” Olson says. “It strengthens the CFO’s convictions about what he’s doing. It also gives the faculty board members confidence when it comes to a board vote about the budget or finances that they’re making the right decision because we’ve brought our expertise to the issue.”
The business challenges M Physicians faces are familiar ones in the health care space—insurance reimbursements, for instance. M Physicians also has been managing its long-term partnership with Fairview Health Services. The care delivery side of the relationship “has worked well,” Olson says, but the board has had to help M Physicians work through payment challenges. The University of Minnesota’s current contract with Fairview ends in late 2026, and the two parties have begun discussing a new agreement. “The university is working respectfully and diligently to resolve the challenges and chart a new course for the future,” Olson says.
Collegiality is one of Olson’s virtues as an M Physicians director, says fellow community member Dee Thibodeau, CEO of Plymouth-based IT consulting firm Charter Solutions. “The financial picture is absolutely critical to this organization moving forward, especially with the relationship with Fairview and the University of Minnesota,” Thibodeau notes. “The University of Minnesota Physicians is financially in a much better place now than it was a couple of years ago.” She believes that is in large part because Olson has chaired several of the [financial] areas, helping the board uncover ways to save money “and to be more conscious of what we’re spending.”
Olson teases the physicians he works with about their sometimes-lengthy board reports. But his appreciation for their work is undeniable and heartfelt. “Sometimes I get emotional hearing stories about what these docs have done,” he says.
Other board service
University of Minnesota Foundation (2013-present)
Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship at the Carlson School of Management (2013-21)
University of Minnesota Medical Foundation (2007-13)
