Businessman finds wealth in world health

BAR HARBOR – Visitors to Dennis Sokol’s office needn’t look beyond the two clocks on the wall to know what makes him tick.

One clock marks the time in Bar Harbor, the other in Moscow.

For Sokol, it really is a small world.

“My mission in life is the transport of the American health care system outside of the United States,” Sokol said recently.

His business successes include building for-profit hospitals in Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Panama, as well as in central Asia.

Sokol seems most proud of American Hospital in Moscow, one of seven hospitals he built in Russia after the fall of communism.

In a classic flight from the rat race, Sokol moved his Boston investment business to Mount Desert Island in May to live year-round at his Bass Harbor home in Tremont.

He settled on a basement office in Bar Harbor, complete with plush leather chairs, oriental rugs and those two clocks.

“Our system, with all its flaws,” he said, “is clearly the best health care system in the world.”

As a founding member of the U.S.-Iraq Business Alliance, Sokol hopes to bring American health care to Iraq, while helping some of the largest U.S. corporations get a foothold in the emerging Iraqi economy.

“The way out, post war, is the private sector,” Sokol said of the new Iraq. “Every country in the world is putting up their kiosk. There are enormous opportunities in Iraq and American companies cannot afford to wait.”

A first-generation Russian immigrant who grew up in California, Sokol received a bachelor of science degree in business from Arizona State University, Tempe, and a master’s degree in international management and finance from Thunderbird American Graduate School of International Management, Glendale, Ariz.

He launched Medserve Corp. in Stamford, Conn., in 1981. Medserve included three separate companies that specialized in providing X-ray, lab and other services to hospitals, dental offices and veterinarians.

In 1988, after selling Medserve, Sokol was named chairman and chief executive officer of Hospital Corporation International, which owned and managed hospitals in eight foreign countries.

According to Sokol, the U.S. health care system is unique because Americans typically have a family doctor who knows and oversees all aspects of a patient’s care, even when specialists are called in.

In other countries, patients might see three or four doctors for different ailments, without having a primary care physician to keep track of it all.

“Throughout most of the world, there are only specialists,” Sokol explained. “Our system is different. Doctors are accountable and responsible to the patient. The patient comes first.”

In 1992, when Russia liberated itself from communism, Sokol founded American Hospital Group in Boston.

He had served as CEO of the American Soviet Consortium for three years, negotiating with Mikhail Gorbechev on behalf of some of America’s mightiest corporations hoping to enter the new Russian market, so he was well positioned to start his for-profit hospital group.

That experience in Russia also makes him a natural to help other companies break into the new Iraqi economy.

Sokol stepped down as CEO of American Hospital Group last year, although he remains its chairman. His focus now is squarely on Iraq.

He and his son, Alexander, founded the MI Group in May, an international venture capital firm headquartered in Bar Harbor. Sokol also is developing a graduate-level economics program on emerging international markets for the University of Maine School of Business.

“America was one of the last countries to invest in Russia,” Sokol said. “I hope the same thing doesn’t happen in Iraq.”