George Meister doesn’t see patients or research cures for diseases, but the Clemson University graduate plays a vital role in the health care of millions of people.
Meister is vice president of the global information technology project management office at Labcorp, a life sciences company that provides laboratory testing for a wide range of medical needs, including patient diagnosis, clinical trials and advancing understanding of various diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s.
Results from laboratory tests inform 70 percent of clinical decision-making, helping to diagnose, monitor and treat conditions, according to the American Clinical Laboratory Association.
Doctor’s orders
Labcorp receives around 700,000 orders for testing every day and produces over 1.5 million results daily, Meister said.
His team’s projects deliver technology solutions that support Labcorp’s global laboratory network, from checking in patients who need to get blood drawn or provide a urine sample to running diagnostic tests and providing patients and doctors their results electronically in a timely and accurate fashion.
“It’s a substantial operation to support all of that from a logistics standpoint. If you have sick patients, doctors need information to treat them. It’s really important that we provide that in a reliable and timely way,” said Meister, who graduated with a degree in mathematics. “It’s critical.”
Meister didn’t know how he wanted to use a mathematics degree when he arrived at Clemson as a first-year student in 1995.
“I knew mathematical sciences would allow me to branch into whatever I wanted,” said Meister, who also minored in computer science.
While he was walking to class in Martin Hall one day, he saw a flyer for a cooperative education program at Clemson that allowed students to alternate between taking a semester of classes with a semester working full-time for one of the University’s corporate partners. Meister worked for three semesters in the IT department at Mount Vernon Mills, working on tasks such as manning the company’s technical support desk, setting up network equipment and installing enterprise software.
It was there that Meister discovered what he wanted to do career-wise.
Broadened view
“Working at Mount Vernon Mills broadened my view of IT. It’s not just somebody who fixes your computer. It’s the people who write the programs and code to create solutions that people use online or through a mobile device to interact digitally with things. It’s the underlying structure behind the scenes. There’s a lot related to data analysis and certainly, as it’s evolved to now, a major focus on artificial intelligence.”
Meister said he found his strength was being able to talk technology with non-technology individuals, to understand the challenges people in various roles were facing and how IT could address them.
“I really enjoyed and was pretty good at being able to see the business side of most things and how technology could help,” he said.
Meister now leads the Labcorp team responsible for executing IT projects companywide, oftentimes spanning many different groups across a large cross functional IT organization.
Proud moments
He’s especially proud of the company’s response to the pandemic in 2020.
“I think sometimes your proudest moment are in some of the toughest times,” he said. “With the pandemic, we had a lot of pressure on us as a company to try and provide COVID-related testing as soon as possible. People wanted answers quickly. We had to ramp up this brand new thing very quickly so we could inform patients and doctors if someone had it. So many things were hinging on that. We were at the heart of it.”
Meister has worked for Labcorp for 22 years.
“I have a passion for what Labcorp does. Labcorp is a company that really impacts patient lives every day. I know the role that Labcorp plays when people are in some of their scariest situations and the impact of what we do in patient lives cannot be understated,” he said. “I have been able to make an impact in the company, and when you’re in impactful roles with an impactful company, why would you want to go anywhere else.”
Key to success
He said his math degree from Clemson is one of the keys to his success.
“Math taught me to think analytically to solve a problem. It’s one of the top skills I gained from Clemson.”
George Meister
Meister didn’t know a single person when he arrived on the Clemson campus as a first-year student from the Los Angeles area.
“It was really a large leap of faith going there,” he said, adding that Clemson’s welcoming, family feel won him over.
He joined the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, which became a big part of his social experience.
Clemson is also where Meister met his wife, Emily, a fourth-generation Tiger, who graduated in 1999 with a degree in financial management. Their daughter, Taylor Leigh Meister, is a sophomore at Clemson majoring in communications. Their son Jackson is a freshman in high school in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Meister said he and his wife try to experience as much of Clemson as possible year-round, and they plan to retire nearby.
“Going to Clemson was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life,” he said.
