Vic Strecher

Vic Strecher also known as Victor J. Strecher (born November 1, 1955) is an American public health figure, professor, author, researcher, entrepreneur and visionary leader. He is best known for his web-based digital health coaching platform “Health Media”, acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2008. His interests span both the public and academic research in private and venture capital arenas. Stretcher gained recognition for his book “On Purpose: Lessons in Life and Health From the Frog, the Dung Beetle, and Julia” and has been covered in all major news outlets including Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, WIRED, Chicago Tribune, TEDMED, and TEDx.
Strecher’s main areas of research are in psychology of healthy personal change, improved health and emotional wellbeing. He is a fellow of the SAHMRI Wellbeing and Resilience Centre. Strecher has authored over 85 journals and has presented both nationally and internationally at leading conferences related to psychology and healthy personal change.
== Early life and education ==
Vic Strecher was born on 1 Nov 1955 and spent his early days in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In 1983, Strecher completed his Ph.D. in Health Behavior from the University of Michigan.
==Academic Research==
The flagship public health research initiative that launched Strecher’s tenure at the U-M was the Michigan Interactive Health Kiosk Demonstration Project or Health-o-Vision. Described as the 'brainchild' of Strecher, it consisted of over 90 dial-up networked public kiosks distributed throughout the state of Michigan and presented various health 'channels', such as bike safety, smoking cessation, immunization, and cancer. This demonstration project was funded in its entirety through 'tobacco tax dollars' from the Michigan Department of Community Health within the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. The total amount of state-funded appropriations for this demonstration project over a period of 6 years, as chaired by Sen. Joe Schwarz, vice chairman of the senate appropriations sub-committee on community health, was 6 million dollars. Usage statistics on the project were summarized but no formative or summative evaluations on the efficacy of this demonstration project were ever published.
== Career ==
Strecher began his career as an associate professor in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for a period of 10 years from Sep 1985 to Aug 1995. since 1995 Dr. Strecher has been a Professor in the University of Michigan School of Public Health (U-M) since 1995 where he also began serving as Associate Director for Cancer Prevention and Control at the now Rogel Cancer Center.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Michigan_Rogel_Cancer_Center Within the Cancer Center and in the spring of 1996 he set up the Health Media Research Laboratoryhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q87X99fvnrYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUgIOpkTJmo which is now the Center for Health Communications Researchwith the original purpose of developing grant funded Computer-tailored Smoking Cessation programshttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10223016/ which expanded into over $45 million in a wide variety of grant-funded studies that "rivaled" other established interventions (p189https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062409607/life-on-purpose/). In 2010, he was selected as the U-M Distinguished University Innovator.
Based on his grant funded research in which Strecher stated to the Regents of the University of Michigan that he had "discovered something simple but revolutionary" as documented in the U-M 1999 Financial Report (page xxvhttps://www.google.com/books/edition/Financial_Report/UkEOAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22Vic+Strecher%22+-wikipedia&dq=%22Vic+Strecher%22+-wikipedia&printsec=frontcover), the University of Michigan Office of Technology Transfer and with angel funding (and soon after, rescue funding) by then venture capitalist Rick Snyder.,https://www.mlive.com/politics/2010/07/rick_snyder_governor_gateway.html Strecher founded the privately held HealthMedia Inc.https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/832541Z:US in 1998, an Ann Arbor-based company that, when licensed exclusively from his publicly funded research, developed and applied personalized tailored health tracking/intervention tools to millions of users. In 2008 and though having never announced an annual fiscal profit since its inception HealthMedia Inc. was purchased by Johnson & Johnson, Inc. (J&J) for reported approximations of up to 200 million dollarshttps://issuu.com/crainsdetroit/docs/cd97547125, although exact figures have never been publicly available. At the time of the sale, U-M president Mary Sue Coleman was serving on the J&J board of directors. Following Snyder's election as Michigan governor, J&J then folded HealthMedia into a subsidiary (Johnson & Johnson Health and Wellness Solutions) and is no longer operating in the state of Michigan.
Strecher's 19-year-old daughter, Julia, a two-time heart-transplant recipient, died suddenly on March 2, 2010 while vacationing in the Dominican Republic. Based on this personal tragedy he began exploring the philosophical and practical aspects of purpose and began widely promoting himself as an author,and motivational speaker. In many interviews, Strecher presented his vision, "To help over one billion people find greater purpose and meaning in their lives".Also borne out of this tragedy and from his significant earnings from the sale of HealthMedia, Strecher was able to form the privately held company JOOLHealth.com,named from his daughter's eponym (JOOL = Julia)and that continued his interest in venture capital financed personalized tailored health interventions and is listed as the firm's Chief Purpose Officer and largest stock holderhttps://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2017/02/09/a-purpose-driven-app-tests-work-life-balance/https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/jool-health. 
In May of 2016, Strecher hired the Akropolis Reed Quintethttps://akropolisquintet.org/ as a part of a "collaborative performance" in the U-M's Rackham Auditorium to showcase and sign his newly released 2nd autobiographical book.https://mmheadlines.org/2016/04/life-on-purpose-an-evening-with-vic-strecher-ph-d-featuring-akropolis-reed-quintet/
In March of 2018, the company abruptly changed its domain to Kumanu.com[29] with a complete redesign and executive/operational overhaul.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOPQD-VO0TA Kumanu products are made only available to employees of corporations that have special partnerships with Kumanu, Inc. and are not available to individuals.
== Political activism ==
Strecher was an active supporter of the Michigan gubernatorial candidacy of Rick Snyder. He created the Wolverines for Snyder political campaign group at the U-M. As a "personal friend of Snyder", Strecher said his role up was to increase campus voter turnout in favor of Snyder and help students within the group develop campaign strategies. The group worked with neighboring universities, like Michigan State University, to increase support for Snyder's candidacies.
== Selected publications ==
* “On Purpose: Lessons in Life and Health From the Frog, the Dung Beetle, and Julia” on Dec 1, 2013 by Dung Beetle Press.
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==In the media==
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==References==
==External links==
* Vic Strecher on facebook
* Vic Strecher on twitter
* Vic Strecher on linkedin
* Victor Strecher, PhD | Faculty Profiles | U-M School of Public Health
* Vic Strecher – Center for Positive Organizations
* Speaker: Vic Strecher - TEDMED
* Vic Strecher, Instructor | Coursera
* Life On Purpose - The New Book From Vic Strecher - Kumanu
Category:Doctoral degrees
Category:1955 births
Category:University of Michigan schools, colleges, and departments
Category:University of Michigan faculty
Category:Regents of the University of Michigan
Category:Academic disciplines
Category:Research
Category:University of Michigan alumni