About Robert Michel

BIOGRAPHY

Editor-in-Chief, DARK Daily and The Dark Report

Robert L. Michel is a respected commentator, consultant, author, editor, speaker, and entrepreneur. He is a leading expert on the management of clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology group practices.

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Lab Industry Leader and Consultant

Michel is Editor-In-Chief of  The Dark Report and President of The Dark Intelligence Group, Inc. Over the past three decades, he has provided strategic and tactical management services to a wide variety of companies, ranging from Fortune 100 firms like Procter & Gamble and Financial Corp. of America to leading laboratories ranging from Nichols Institute to hospital and health system laboratory organizations. He has a special talent for spotting new business opportunities in clinical diagnostics and identifying winning strategies to pursue them.

Some of his current and past clients include: Meridia Health System (Cleveland, OH), PACLAB Regional Laboratory Network (Seattle, WA), Consultants in Laboratory Medicine (Toledo, OH), PAML, Inc.(Spokane, WA), UMASS Healthcare Reference Laboratories (Worcester, MA), Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics (Raritan, NJ), Pathology Service Associates (Florence, SC), DIANON Systems, Inc, (Stratford, CT), Beaumont Health System (Detroit, MI), MedTox Laboratories, Inc. (St. Paul, MN), Joint Venture Hospital Laboratory Network (Detroit, MI), Bayer Diagnostics (Tarrytown, NY), Bio-Reference Laboratories, Inc. (Elmwood Park, NJ), Specialty Laboratories, Inc., (Santa Monica, CA), National Health Service-Pathology Services (London, England), Doctor’s Laboratory (Valdosta, GA), Sysmex Corporation (Mundelein, IL), Pathologist’s Medical Laboratory (La Jolla, CA), Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, IL), St. John Clinical Laboratory Pathology Laboratory (Detroit, MI), Esoterix, Inc.(Austin, TX), Beckman Coulter Corporation (Fullerton, CA), Health Care Systems, Johnson & Johnson (Atlanta, GA), ARUP Laboratories, Inc. (Salt Lake City, UT), Institute for Quality in Laboratory Medicine (Atlanta, GA), and American Society of Clinical Pathology (ASCP-Chicago, IL).

Michel was first to identify and describe many of the widely-used management strategies in the operation of clinical laboratories and pathology practices. He has one of the best track records of predictions in laboratory management over the past decade and a half. He won the W.A.D. Anderson Award in 2015 and the SIPA Best Investigative Reporting award.

Michel is a member of the Clinical Laboratory Management Association (CLMA), the American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC), Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA).

Popular Journalist, Author & Editor

Michel writes and edits The Dark Report, a business intelligence service for pathologists and laboratory executives that, over its eleven years of publication, has garnered national and international respect of its ground-breaking coverage of events and industry trends within the laboratory profession. Application for charter memberships are available at DarkReport.com.

International Meeting Innovator, Public Speaker

Michel is the Founder and Director of the Executive War College on Lab and Pathology Management. First conducted in 1996, this gathering has become the premier forum for laboratory management in the world. For pathologists, he developed the Pathologist’s Income Symposium a meeting series which is exclusively focused on helping pathologists increase their practice income, as well as their professional income.  Every September he hosts a meeting by The Dark Report called Lab Quality Confab.  It is an annual gathering dedicated to advancing the knowledge, skills, and effectiveness of quality management practitioners in diagnostic medicine. Programs, LEAN information, and training are designed for every level of management and all levels of knowledge and experience. Diagnostic medicine, particularly the services of clinical laboratory, pathology, imaging, and radiology, make up the primary emphasis of the Lab Quality Confab.

Since 2004, he has co-produced Frontiers in Laboratory Medicine (FiLM) in the United Kingdom with the Association of Clinical Biochemists. This meeting has quickly earned a reputation as the best source of laboratory best practices in Europe. In 2005, Michel co-produced Executive Edge in Canada with QSE Consulting. This meeting about strategic laboratory management innovations in Canada proved popular and is repeated in the fall since 2005.

Michel is regularly asked to address laboratory industry groups. In addition to regular speaking engagements throughout the United States, he has traveled to Brazil, England, Canada, Australia, Korea, Japan, Ireland, and South Africa to address laboratory audiences in those countries. Meeting participants regularly rate Michel’s presentations as one of the best at the event.

Experienced Educator, Strategist, and Business Facilitator

Over the past decade and a half, Michel has been invited to provide Grand Rounds and teach clinical laboratory and pathology management at the pathology departments of such medical schools as University of Minnesota, University of California at Los Angeles and University of Texas Southwest/Houston. He has provided strategic assessments to laboratory organizations, IVD manufacturers, pathology groups, information technology vendors, biotech companies, and diagnostic start-up companies. He is regularly asked to facilitate strategic management retreats and business planning meetings for such clients as PAML, OML, Sysmex Corporation.

Michel received his B.A. in Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles. He is a native of Santa Ana, California and currently lives and works in Austin, Texas