Patrick Spain

Patrick J. Spain (born 1952) is a serial entrepreneur. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of First Stop Health, LLC., a Chicago-based provider of telemedicine services. He is also the Executive Chairman and co-founder of the news curation site Newser. Spain is the former chairman and CEO Hoover's, which he co-founded; and the founder and former CEO of HighBeam Research. Hoover's was sold to Dun & Bradstreet in 2003, and HighBeam Research was purchased by Cengage Learning in 2008.

History Spain attended the University of Chicago and graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in Ancient Roman History in 1974. He worked for Gladstone Associates, now part of Accenture from 1974 to 1977. He subsequently attended law school at Boston University, and graduated in 1979. Intrigued by the opportunities in the emerging intersection of information and technology, Spain then joined the Extel Corporation, a telex manufacturer, as an associate counsel. At the university, he met Gary Hoover.

Spain worked at Extel for ten years in various positions, including General Counsel, VP of Administration, and VP, Mergers & Acquisitions. During this period, Spain provided some of the initial capital for the creation of Bookstop, a company founded by his friend Gary Hoover. an innovator in company-related content started by Jigsaw founder Jim Fowler, where he continues to serve on the Board. He is also a Director of Community Health, the largest free health clinic in Chicago, and a Governor of Opportunity International, the oldest and largest microlender in the world; and Chairman of the Library Council at the University of Chicago.

In 2012, Spain, Dr. Mark Friedman, and Ken Anderson founded First Stop Health. Friedman, an Emergency Medicine physician, was a classmate of Spain's at the University of Chicago. Spain's interest in creating First Stop Health arose from his own unsatisfactory experience with the healthcare system when a member of his family experienced a serious illness. This ignited his desire to make patient access to quality healthcare more convenient and affordable.

His father, James W. Spain, was a career foreign service officer and a U.S. ambassador to Tanzania, Turkey, and Sri Lanka. Spain was born in Pakistan and grew up in Turkey and Washington, D.C.