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New Board Leadership: Eric T. Johnson, M.D., Takes the Helm as Board Chair
This article appeared in the Fall 2019 Issue of the Tower Hill Bulletin
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The Tower Hill School Board of Trustees named Eric T. Johnson, M.D., board chair at its May meeting. Johnson joined Tower Hill’s Board in 2013 and has served the school in various leadership capacities, including as a member of the Strategic Planning Committee, a member of the Advancement Committee and co-chair of the Committee on Trustees.
Johnson is the associate chief of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and director of Orthopaedic Trauma Services in the Christiana Care Health System. He is on the clinical faculty at Wilmington Hospital and St. Francis Hospital and serves on Christiana Care’s Board of Directors. Johnson practices with First State Orthopaedics and serves as adjunct associate professor in the physical therapy program at the University of Delaware.
Johnson is a 1990 graduate of the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and completed his residency in orthopaedic surgery at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and fellowship in Orthopaedic Trauma Surgery at Cooper Hospital, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He is a 1990 diplomate of the National Board of Medical Examiners and a 1999 and 2008 diplomate of the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery. Johnson was a 1990 recipient of the Dean’s Award for Student Leadership Penn State’s College of Medicine and Christiana Care’s Surgical Sub-Specialist of the Year in 2000. His two children, Spencer ’16 and Malcolm ’18, are Tower Hill graduates, currently attending Yale and Brown universities, respectively.
Immediate past Chair Michelle D. Shepherd completed her term at the end of the 2018-2019 school year, having contributed to the school in many significant ways since joining the board in 2010. Among many other committees, Shepherd served as chair of the board’s Committee on Trustees, chair of the Head of School Search Committee, a member of the Institutional Strategy and Positioning Study Working Group and a member of the Strategic Planning Committee.
Shepherd retired from Bank of America in 2008 as the company’s East Division Executive. She has served as a director of the American Heart Association, Delaware Affiliate, and as a trustee of Delaware State University. Currently, she is a trustee of the Delaware Historical Society, a director of the Mary Campbell Center in Wilmington and chair of Georgetown University’s Alumni Admissions Program in Delaware. Her daughters—Isabel ’20 and Ella ’22—attend Tower Hill.
“Michelle Shepherd’s exceptional work on behalf of Tower Hill School has strengthened the board and the school in a myriad of ways, and we are extraordinarily grateful for her vision and leadership,” Head of School Bessie Speers said. “It has been a privilege to work with Michelle, and it will continue to be an honor to work with Dr. Eric Johnson as our new board chair. Eric has shown a deep commitment to Tower Hill and the board, and we are fortunate to have him as chair as we celebrate Centennial and this next century for Tower Hill.”
