Founder
An operational view of what healthcare depends on.
Just The Bones was initiated by Richard Gesner, a lead engineer overseeing the Central Utility Plant at a large medical center.
Years spent working inside the physical systems behind patient care made one pattern difficult to ignore: critical infrastructure is expected to remain dependable, but the projects required to renew it often struggle to compete for limited capital.
What began as an effort to understand one hospital’s infrastructure challenges led to a larger question: Why is there no national nonprofit focused specifically on the physical systems that make healthcare possible?
The founder’s role is to initiate the work, articulate the mission, and help assemble the people capable of turning it into a responsible institution. The long-term objective is not a founder-centered organization. It is a durable foundation governed for the public benefit and capable of serving healthcare infrastructure beyond any one person’s tenure.