ACOFP: OUR CONTINUING HISTORY 15 THE FOUNDING AND EARLY YEARS CHICAGO BOUND The details of the decision to move to Chicago are murky at best. The first recorded executive secretary after the organization relocated there was Jack Hank. Following his 1955 discharge from the military, Mr. Hank began employment with the AOA public relations department. He left AOA in 1960 to become the public relations director of Lions International. Sometime in the early 1960s, W. Clemens “Tiny” Andreen, DO, FACOFP, and four board members met with Mr. Hank in a downtown hotel and offered him the job of ACOFP’s part-time executive secretary. The position’s part-time nature allowed Mr. Hank time to pursue his other business affairs, including those of his main company Allied Appraisals, a consortium of other business ventures not restricted to medical organization management. He and his company would be linked with ACOFP for almost two decades. Mr. Hank provided the organizational skills and financial background needed to put ACOFP in a place of prominence. The board members who hired and worked with him considered Mr. Hank a charismatic leader who demanded nothing but the best for ACOFP. He traveled first-class and demanded that those in his organization would do the same. Tireless in his efforts to elevate ACOFP’s stature, he produced educational seminars that were the envy of the profession. His work with AOA made him more adept in the profession’s politics. The first ACOFP office was in Jack Hank’s basement at his home located at 7926 S. Campbell Ave., in Chicago. The business operations, address, and all employees were the sole property of Mr. Hank’s business, Allied Appraisals. Research also discovered correspondence to ACOFP addressed to 8415 S. Winchester Ave., Chicago, Illinois. The Archival and Historical Committee believes that Mr. Hank may have operated out of two offices for ACOFP during the Chicago transfer. Allied Appraisals dealt with property management, and through family ties, Mr. Hank had connections with the Teamsters. Finances and his parttime affiliation with ACOFP did not limit his outside ventures. In fact, ACOFP’s business and correspondence and Mr. Hank’s various enterprises were often commingled, and all the organizations functioned virtually as one. 7926 S. Campbell Ave., Chicago, IL; Early 1960s–1970 8415 S. Winchester Ave., Chicago, IL; 1970–1978
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