Schumacher To Be Presented with 92nd Lafayette Civic Cup November 12

LAFAYETTE, LA – The Lafayette Civic Cup will honor business and civic leader Dr. William C. “Kip” Schumacher as the 92nd recipient of the prestigious award at the organization’s annual banquet slated for Tuesday, November 12 at 5:30 pm at the City Club at River Ranch.

Upon learning of the honor, Schumacher modestly said, “To be recognized as a member of such a prestigious group of individuals who have made Acadiana a better place to live is truly an honor. But truth be told, the people I have been privileged to work with are the true heroes and also worthy of this recognition. Acadiana is an amazing place to live and a community I am proud to be part of.”

If you’ve ever thrown a stone into a lake, you know that once it hits the water, it forms a ripple that grows larger and larger, wider and wider, until soon its reach is much greater than the original impact. If the world is a lake, then Kip Schumacher is the stone, spreading goodwill and making waves wherever he goes. The modern-day Renaissance man has many talents. From making jewelry in his apartment to pay for medical school— to working in the high-stakes environment of a hospital Emergency Department—to launching one of the country’s largest healthcare practice management companies—to donating millions of dollars to worthy causes—Kip pours all his energy into every endeavor. He’s traveled and worked with people worldwide yet remains grounded in his childhood home of Lafayette, Louisiana, a close-knit community in the heart of Cajun Country.

While Kip was attending the University of Southwestern Louisiana—now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette—he started making jewelry from brass, silver, and gold wire. His work not only helped fund his LSU New Orleans medical school tuition, but it also gained the attention of his hometown’s largest apparel store, which encouraged him to grow. He recruited five employees, including his father, to work for him and travel around the Southeast to art and jewelry shows.

After medical school, Kip began a 17-year career in the Emergency Department of Opelousas Medical Center near his hometown. As a physician, Kip not only saw ways to improve the clinical side of patient care but recognized opportunities to make the business and management better.

With trusted friend and hospital administrator Gary Keller, Kip launched Schumacher Group in 1994 in two empty exam rooms in the back of a doctor’s office, working in the Emergency Department on nights and weekends for a steady income. Kip’s idea was to go into hospitals and streamline their Emergency Department operations, helping with anything from staffing and scheduling to billing, insurance, electronic records, and quality management. With an unwavering vision and the right people beside him, Kip grew Schumacher Group from managing the emergency services at 10 facilities in one year to 50 in five years. In 1999, they were named among Inc. magazine’s 500 Fastest Growing Companies.

After 20 years of operating independently, Schumacher Group merged with a financial partner, Onex Corporation. They then merged with Hospital Physician Partners to form Schumacher Clinical Partners. A year later in 2016, they joined forces with ECI Healthcare Partners, becoming SCP Health and expanding their footprint. Now SCP Health, the company, serves 10+ million patients, with nearly 8,000 clinicians at 400 hospitals, providing a full range of clinical services in 37 states and is one of the largest healthcare practice management companies in the country, provides an entire continuum of clinical care services including emergency medicine, hospital medicine, intensive care, ambulatory care, telemedicine and wellness programs.

Just as Kip set out to improve the Emergency Department, he sought ways to better his profession. In 1998, he co-founded the Emergency Department Practice Management Association (EDPMA), a Washington DC-based practice alliance to help doctors advocate for and better understand the business, regulatory, and legislative aspects of the Emergency Department.

In 2016, he co-founded Physicians for Fair Coverage (PFC), a non-partisan alliance of tens of thousands of physicians that protects patients from surprise billings and provides fair reimbursements to physicians. Within two years, PFC formed multi-specialty coalitions in 24 states to battle state legislative issues related to balance billing challenges.

The way healthcare was provided and funded across the country was at risk. Both these organizations are still in existence and are still battling to improve healthcare for providers and patients. To decompress, Kip travels with his wife and family for leisure, adventure, and mission work. He has hiked Glacier National Park, climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa, and fed the hungry by volunteering and supporting Cross Catholic Charity in Haiti. But those close to Kip know his mind never stops. He has a rare gift for not only coming up with brilliant ideas but following through. He’s a connector, constantly bringing people together with common goals to make a bigger impact. The more he’s worked and the more successful he’s become, the more he’s given back. And the more people he meets and the more places he visits, the more he becomes interested in a myriad of causes.

Kip has earned numerous awards and accolades as a physician, entrepreneur, businessman, and philanthropist, including the Louisiana Governor’s “Innovator the Year,” University of Louisiana’s “Outstanding Alumni Award,” “Hero of Emergency Medicine” by the American College of Emergency Physicians, “Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year” Gulf Coast Area, nominee for “Ernst & Young National,” Louisiana Limb Salvage Club’s “Lifetime Achievement Award Hall of Fame,” “Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame 2024 Laureate”—just to name a few.

He’s taken his crisis-management skills learned from years in the Emergency Department into the real world to deal head-on with everything from hurricanes and floods to the COVID-19 pandemic. When faced with a crisis, the beloved Mr. Rogers famously shared this advice from his mother: “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Kip is one of the helpers. When coronavirus first hit Louisiana in February 2020, Kip immediately saw the need for more PPE (personal protective equipment) for healthcare workers. Using his broad network, he was able to order 5.4 million masks from a reputable vendor in China—not yet knowing where or how he’d store and distribute them. After donating an initial 1 million masks for providers, churches, essential workers, and patients on the front lines, he founded Mask on Every Face, LLC to provide affordable masks on time to those who needed them most, while keeping out the price gougers. In the first several weeks, the organization worked with such clients as FedEx, BMO, CGI, Caterpillar, Coca-Cola, local chambers of commerce, and multiple state governments as well as hospitals and other healthcare institutions all over the country.

Following Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Kip became involved with Eight Days of Hope (EDOH). The national Christian-based organization enters communities and completes significant projects in eight days. Impressed with their sophisticated project management, Kip helped raise a 1.25 million matching grant that provided 2.5 million dollars of additional resources, and Eight Days of Hope built an astonishing 800 houses in Houston in just sixteen days. Kip has continued to champion the EDOH work. Today, EDOH provides rapid disaster response, rebuilding events, and mass feeding relief. EDOH has served 10,000 families and 28,000 meals with 57,000 volunteers doing 84 million dollars of work. Having grown up in Louisiana’s public schools, Kip remains passionate about providing a strong foundation for young people at home and abroad and believes a good education is key to a prosperous community. Through his business dealings in India, Kip learned about the Pratham Education Foundation. He helped them expand from providing basic educational needs to teaching job-ready skills by funding multiple vocational schools throughout India. He’s taken the same pragmatic approach in the United States. Kip has supported Leader in Me and the United Way to teach public school children, across Acadiana Schools, Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He has also supported Capturing Kids Hearts, a program that helps educators build relationships with students to improve student achievement and reduce behavioral issues. Capturing Kids Hearts is based on the idea that students who feel connected to their school and teachers are more likely to succeed academically. School Connect is another program that Kip has supported in the education realm. This program connects schools to the community, building a village of support around them so that every child has the resources and connections they need to reach their potential.

In 2019, he partnered with Love Acadiana and other foundations to catalyze Love Our Schools (LOS) with a Serve Day. In its inaugural year, Love Our Schools raised over $1 million to fund 100 service projects at eight schools in Lafayette Parish, recruiting nearly 3,000 volunteers and providing backpacks and school supplies to 5,000 students and 750 faculty and staff.

Today, Love Our Schools, now a 501c3 non-profit, remains dedicated to enhancing Lafayette Parish public schools by fostering community involvement and delivering programs that cultivate an inclusive environment where every student can thrive. Through its efforts, Love Our Schools supports student empowerment initiatives, community engagement activities, and innovative resources for teachers, classrooms, and schools. These efforts positively impact over 30,000 students and 4,000 employees within the Lafayette Parish School System.

Kip and his wife Carolyn formalized their philanthropic work in 2018 by founding the William C. Schumacher Family Foundation (WCSFF). Their Foundation has supported many projects throughout Acadiana, including Moncus Park (Paul A. Doerle Sr. Farmers Market Pavilion), LAMARC (juvenile justice), and the Arts in Education Expansion into several Acadiana parishes. Kip also works tirelessly to improve education for the lives of Acadiana youth through his work on state education policy, education technology for students, and the St. Landry Charter School (Helix A.I. and Medical Academy). Kip founded the Southwest LA Disaster Response Organization and a local Acadiana disaster response organization. The Foundation also supports numerous local groups such as Our Savior’s Church, Parish Proud, United Way of Acadiana, Catholic Charities, Love Acadiana, Hope for Opelousas, The Bayou Church, Women of Wisdom, SPARK Acadiana, and many others.

The Schumachers support causes close to their hearts, and they frequently and selflessly open their home to host events to unite the community by bringing people together.

If anyone knows how to take an idea and grow it exponentially, it’s Kip. He watched a side jewelry business grow into a money-making endeavor and went from working in one ER to having a presence in 400. And now, with a wealth of resources and connections, he’s poised to help nonprofits reach their full potential. All you need is the right idea, and Dr. Kip Schumacher can figure out the rest.

Living Civic Cup recipients include Edward Abell, Jr. (’95), Bill Fenstermaker (’99), Dr. Jean Kreamer (’00), Madlyn Boustany Hilliard (’01), Matt Stuller (’02), Paul Hilliard (’03), Clive “Rusty” Cloutier (’04), Greg Davis, Sr. (’05), James Prince (’07), Dr. Paul “Buddy” Azar, Jr. (’09), Gary McGoffin (’10), Dwight “Bo” Ramsay (’12), Red Lerille (’13), Kevin Moody (’14), Henry “Hank” Perret (’15), Clay Allen (’16), Dr. Mary Neiheisel (’17), Randy Haynie (’18), Jerry Greig (’19), Barry Berthelot (’21), Lenny Lemoine (’22), and Rodney Savoy (’23)

The 2024 Lafayette Civic Cup is being sponsored by First Horizon Bank, Parish Proud, and City Club at River Ranch.