Becky Wampler was named executive director of the Wellmark Foundation in January. 

For the previous five years, she led Wellmark’s community health improvement efforts, which include the Blue Zones Project in Iowa. Wampler, who has worked for Wellmark for more than 25 years, will continue in that role in addition to her new duties of leading the Wellmark Foundation’s strategy and development of health improvement initiatives in Iowa and South Dakota. About half of the foundation’s grants are made through an annual competitive grantmaking process, and half are driven by Wellmark employee contributions. This year marks the foundation’s 25th anniversary.

Tell me about the Wellmark Foundation’s focus. 
The focus of the Wellmark Foundation is to increase the opportunity for physical activity and movement, increase access to healthy foods and to provide safe environments where kids can be physically active and have healthy food. And looking at things we can do environmentally (for children) to lead happier, active and healthier lives. 

What are the foundation’s funding sources? 
The Wellmark Foundation is a private foundation that is funded by Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield of Iowa. So if there is an opportunity for a contribution to be made to the foundation, Wellmark will do that. Today, our corpus is just over $60 million, and we are required by law to distribute 5 percent of that a year. It becomes really tricky, because ideally you’d like to think that our corpus is enough, but (with low interest rates) we’re required to give out more than we’re earning right now. 

Overall, what are your goals for the foundation? 
I think that our areas of focus will probably remain intact, but how we go about it may change. I’m actually going to take the board through a strategic planning process in August. My ultimate goal is just to have as big of an impact as we can for the communities in Iowa and South Dakota. There are so many worthy causes, you just have to figure out how to make the most impact in the most sustainable way. 

Who makes the grant decisions? 
We go through them internally and have a scoring approach. We also have an external review panel across Iowa and South Dakota, probably 16 to 20 people at different times, who review and score them as well. So it’s a very good check and balance. Then we put together a recommendation for the board to approve. 

Tell me about the progress that’s been made through Blue Zones. 
There are many process measures that tell us we’re doing directionally the right things. Its outcome measures are more evasive. It took about the last 30 years for obesity to explode in the state. It’s pretty unrealistic to think that I’m going to turn that around in five years. So we don’t really have those measures yet, but I hope that down the road we will see a shift. We’re seeing more and more partners and organizations that want to come to the table; we’ve seen more and more people focused on what we’ve been talking about for the past five years.  

What’s your leadership philosophy? 
Right now I’m very involved (in the foundation’s day-to-day operations) because I want to understand it all; I’m the kind of person who wants to dive in. I want to have a better way of separating the wheat from the chaff and knowing that something seems right to me. I want to make sure we’re doing all the right things. 

What are your charitable interests? 
I participate in the Wellmark payroll deduction (which goes to the foundation). I’m from a small town in southern Iowa, which is not a particularly growing area. So I have always given my money to little organizations in southern Iowa. Right now my current benefactor is the Allerton Firefighter Association, because Allerton is a little town of maybe 500 people, and firefighting equipment is very expensive for them. 

What are your hobbies? 
I have a new hobby, and that’s being a grandmother. I don’t know if you can consider that a hobby, but it takes a lot of time. I also like cooking for friends and family and traveling.