William E. Morgan, D.C., named the 7th president of Parker University
Dr. William E. Morgan has a long history of serving in military healthcare. Joining the Navy at 17, he served with an elite Marine Recon company as a hospital corpsman. While in the Navy, he was qualified in parachuting, military diving, submarine insertion, jungle warfare, combat swimming, explosives, mountaineering, winter warfare and Arctic survival. Additionally, he attended anti-terrorist training at the FBI Academy. After leaving active military service and transferring to the Navy Reserves, Dr. Morgan began his educational journey to becoming a doctor of chiropractic. While at Palmer College of Chiropractic, he transferred to a Naval Special Warfare platoon as the unit’s primary hospital corpsman. He was sent to Special Operations Technician training to learn the principles of dive medicine. For the next eight years, he served as a dive medicine corpsman/combat swimmer for a platoon of Navy frogmen in Navy Special Warfare Unit One.
In 1985, Dr. Morgan received his Doctorate of Chiropractic from Palmer College of Chiropractic – West Campus and soon after, married fellow Palmer graduate, Clare Pelkey. They practiced for 13 years in California. He has completed a 2,000-hour fellowship program in Integrated Medicine. Since 2006, Dr. Morgan has served on the Board of Trustees for Palmer College of Chiropractic. He is also a Diplomate of the American Academy of Pain Management and holds adjunct faculty positions at F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and New York Chiropractic College. Additionally, Dr. Morgan has served as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), helping to implement the VA’s chiropractic benefit and advocate for chiropractic research.
In 1998, Dr. Morgan was chosen to establish the first chiropractic clinic at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, which later became Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. In 2015, Walter Reed recognized Dr. Morgan with its highest honor for clinical excellence, the Master Clinician’s Award. During the last 18 years at the military’s most prestigious medical centers, he practiced in an integrative setting providing chiropractic care to the injured troops returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dr. Morgan was appointed as the Chiropractic Consultant to the Office of Attending Physician (OAP) at the U.S. Capitol in 2000. At the OAP, doctors of many specialties care for members of Congress and the Supreme Court. Since 2007, Dr. Morgan has served as the Chiropractic Consultant to the White House. He was appointed chiropractor for the United States Naval Academy football team in 2009.
In 2011, Dr. Morgan was appointed to the United States Navy Musculoskeletal Continuum of Care Advisory Board – an entity created to address the prevalent injuries sustained by U.S. Armed Forces Personnel during active-duty operations. Dr. Morgan also served on the Spine Subcommittee, which helps develop care algorithms for treating spinal conditions and determining the future of musculoskeletal management in the U.S. Armed Forces.
Following Dr. Morgan’s appointment as President of Parker University, Admiral Mike Mullen, USN (retired) 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, remarked, “I am writing to express my warmest congratulations on your selection of Dr. Bill Morgan as the next president of Parker University. You simply could not have made a better choice. I have known Bill as a matchless student and practitioner of his profession over the past 13 years. He has had an enormous positive impact on thousands of lives. This impact has been that much more significant during over a decade of war where he has innovated and been on the leading edge of chiropractic practice in sometimes overwhelming circumstances. Bill is personable, studied, and dedicated beyond the call. You truly will be blessed in his service and we will miss him immensely here in Bethesda.”
