Joe M. Rodgers

Joe M. Rodgers (November 12, 1933 – February 2, 2009) was an American construction company executive and political operative who served as the United States Ambassador to France.

Early life Rodgers was born on November 12, 1933, in Bay Minette, Alabama. He was raised in Montgomery, Alabama, where he graduated from Sidney Lanier High School. He attended the University of Alabama, where he was awarded a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1956. He served in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps from 1956 to 1958, where he became a lieutenant.

Business career Rodgers had worked as sales manager for Dixie Concrete Pipe and went out on his own, starting a construction firm in 1966. Having been given a ticket and a house share for the 1968 Masters Tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club, Rodgers ended up sharing a home with Thomas Frist, a doctor from Nashville, Tennessee, who had just started a private hospital company called Hospital Corporation of America. The two built a connection while walking the golf course and Frist offered Rodgers a contract to build a hospital in Erin, Tennessee, for HCA. By 1970, Rodgers had built 19 hospitals for Hospital Corporation of America and had built 200 for the company by 1979, generating $120 million in revenue that year.

Rodgers was named to serve as chairman and acting CEO of Berlitz International, following the mysterious death of former part-owner Robert Maxwell in 1991. He also served as a director of several major corporations and was active in a number of local civic, charitable and religious organizations. Rodgers undertook a fundraising campaign to collect $500,000 to be used towards fixing up the ambassador's residence, raising $100,000 towards this goal by September 1985 after writing to 250 U.S. companies for donations. He and his wife resided in the official residence in Paris, where they would serve GooGoo Clusters, a hometown Nashville delicacy, to their diplomatic guests. Rodgers represented the United States at ceremonies on June 6, 1986, to mark the 42nd anniversary of the Normandy Landings.

Mitterrand recognized Rodgers with the rank of Grand Officier of the Legion of Honor.

Rodgers died of cancer on February 2, 2009, in Nashville, at age 75. He was survived by his wife, Helen Martin "Honey" Rodgers, to whom he had been married for 52 years, as well as a daughter, a son and eight grandchildren.