Donald C. Mills ran hospitals and health care centers for most of his career, and was a key leader in merging a handful of St. Paul hospitals into HealthEast Care Systems in 1986. He ran the Minnesota Veterans Home in Minneapolis for five years until retiring in 1996.

Mills, 76, died from lung cancer in his White Bear Lake home on July 15, said his wife, Lolly.

After serving in a U.S. Army hospital in Munich, Mills earned a hospital administration degree at the University of Minnesota and became administrator of Moose Lake State Hospital in 1962 for six years. He worked six more as chief operating officer at a large nursing home chain in Milwaukee before becoming administrator of Bethesda Lutheran Hospital in St. Paul in 1974.

"He had a way of relating to people that, while they knew he was the boss, they also knew he didn't regard himself as any better than anybody else in the organization," said Bob Armitage, 68, of Stillwater, who worked under Mills at Moose Lake and in later years became a friend. He said Mills was not a micro-manager and was willing to admit his mistakes.

"He was as comfortable in a bar in Virginia [Minn.] as he was in a corporate boardroom or talking to guys in the boiler room," Armitage said. "He enjoyed meeting and talking to people."

By the mid-1980s, Mills could see that small hospitals were being squeezed financially by larger competitors and health insurance companies. Mills and the chief executives of St. John's Hospital and Midway and Mounds Park hospitals arranged and implemented the merger of a group of St. Paul facilities into HealthEast in 1986, said Dean Wahlberg, a member of the HealthEast's board of directors in the 1980s and '90s.

"They decided they couldn't fight each other or they'd be at the mercy of the HMOs and insurance companies," Wahlberg said. He said Mills wasn't comfortable with the resulting three-man leadership team and retired in 1989 as vice chairman of the HealthEast board. He also was president of HealthEast Foundation.

Mills was noted for his conservative fiscal management. "While others were spending like drunken sailors, he was concerned about keeping the organization solvent," said Armitage, who managed Bethesda's long term care program. "He drove Chevrolets, not Cadillacs."

He also enjoyed family weekends at his cabin in Wisconsin and was active at First Lutheran Church in White Bear Lake, said Wahlberg, a fellow church member.

Mills enjoyed doing handyman projects at his home and using his 1949 Farmall tractor to pull wagons carrying his children and grandchildren on hayrides, said his wife of 55 years. He didn't talk about his accomplishments, "We'd hear about that from others," said his daughter, Jan Berthiaume, of Harris, Minn.

Mills is also survived by daughters Julie Richardson, of Vadnais Heights, and Jolene Lefto, of Wyoming, Minn, and nine grandchildren.

Services have been held.

Jim Adams • 612-673-7658