In 2012, Richard E. Wainerdi retired as president and chief executive officer of the Texas Medical Center after almost three decades at the helm. During his tenure, Wainerdi oversaw the expansion of the center into the world's largest medical complex, hosting more than fifty separate institutions. "I wasn't playing any of the instruments, but it's been a privilege being the conductor," he once said to a newspaper reporter.

William Henry Kellar traces Wainerdi's remarkable life story from a bookish childhood in the Bronx to a bold move west to study petroleum engineering at the University...