Kenneth Melani
Kenneth R. Melani is the former president and chief executive officer of Highmark, a health insurance company based in Pittsburgh and the largest health insurer in Pennsylvania. Before his abrupt departure from Highmark in 2012, he was one of the most powerful health insurance executives in the country. At his peak in 2012, Melani was in charge of a Highmark that was $14.6 billion company and had millions of policyholders, for which he was paid $4 million annually. Family and early life He was born to an Italian Catholic family in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. He grew up in Arnold, Pennsylvania, where his childhood home nearly caved-in due to mine subsidence. The family later moved to Cheswick, Pennsylvania, where he attended Springdale High School, part of the Allegheny Valley School District. He attended Washington & Jefferson College, where he was president of Kappa Sigma fraternity and played on the basketball team. He graduated in 1975 with a chemistry degree. He married in 1975 and had two daughters with his first wife. Medical school and medical practice He enrolled in the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in North Carolina and pursued pediatric oncology for a time before specializing in adult internal medicine.