2012 Community Leadership Award Nominee

1. May 18, 2012
David Burda, Editor
Modern Healthcare
Re: Community Leadership Award
Nomination of Michael A. Maron
President/CEO, Holy Name Medical Center
Mr. Burda and Award Selection Committee:
In soliciting nominations for the Community Leadership Award, Modern
Healthcare questions what “downtime” means for our hospital CEO. If Michael A.
Maron, President/Chief Executive Officer of Holy Name Medical Center, is typical, it’s
difficult to imagine a hospital CEO having any downtime at all. Mr. Maron is a very
hands-on CEO, who is “on-call” virtually 24/7. On Christmas Day he can be found in the
ER, stealing a few hours from his family celebration, to offer Christmas greetings,
support and thanks to the staff for giving up part of their holiday.
The principle of respecting those around you with deeds and actions, which Mr.
Maron credits as an influence of his Catholic education and the Congregation of the
Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, Holy Name’s founding Order, starts at the top and
permeates all levels of the environment at Holy Name Medical Center. Staff members are
often praised by patients for the respect, caring and compassion shown to them, and that
culture of respect may well be a contributing factor in Holy Name’s consistent ranking as
one of the best places to work in New Jersey and in the country.
Mr. Maron did not dream of running a hospital in his youth. In fact, he admits that
he had no idea that such a job existed. Despite his great respect and admiration for the
noble profession of physician, he decided against a medical career for himself. Thanks to
the encouragement of a college counselor, he was able to combine his business skills with
his interest in the sciences to major in both accounting and health policy management,
and ultimately was offered his first position in the finance department of a local hospital.
He joined the administration of Holy Name Medical Center in 1987 as Vice President and
Chief Financial Officer and was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer in 1997
at the age of 37.

2. His commitment to the Holy Name mission of helping “our community achieve
the highest attainable level of health through education, prevention and treatment,”
extends to Mr. Maron’s many volunteer activities. He serves as a member of the
American College of Health Care Executives and the Board of Directors of the New
Jersey Hospital Association, is Chairman of the New Jersey Hospital Association’s
HealthPAC Board of Directors and a member of the Board of Directors of Horizon
Healthcare Innovations – Horizon Blue Cross of New Jersey. He is Chairman of the
Healthcare Steering Committee of the Commerce and Industry Association of New
Jersey and chairs the Catholic HealthCare Partnership of New Jersey, a consortium of all
the Catholic hospitals in the state.
Chairman of the Bergen Catholic Alumni Association, former Chairman of the
Board of Directors of Bergen Catholic High School and a former member of the Board of
Directors of St. Joseph School, all located in Bergen County, New Jersey, Mr. Maron has
developed mentoring opportunities at Holy Name Medical Center for students from
schools that range from Newark, New Jersey’s Christ-the-King High School to the
graduate program at Johns Hopkins University.
A frequent speaker on leadership development and healthcare issues, Mr. Maron
is known and admired throughout the Township of Teaneck where Holy Name Medical
Center is located and serves as a major community resource that supports the
municipality, local non-profit organizations and houses of worship, in addition to serving
as the community’s major healthcare provider.
Mr. Maron’s most meaningful volunteer activity - the work in which he is
personally engaged that may well have the most significant and far-reaching impact – is
his work in the impoverished nation of Haiti. Following the catastrophic earthquake that
devastated Haiti in January 2010, a number of Holy Name physicians and nurses joined
the earthquake relief efforts with the encouragement and support of Mr. Maron. Several
of the physicians had been volunteering for many years prior to the earthquake at the
Hôpital Sacré Coeur, the only reliable medical provider in the Milot, Haiti region. Holy
Name Medical Center supported their heroic efforts following the earthquake by
providing pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies for pediatric and adult patients
which the doctors took with them in their duffel bags.
When Holy Name physicians David Butler, Alan Gwertzman and Timothy Finley
returned from the first of many post- earthquake trips, decrying the loss of life due to the
lack of basic medical equipment and supplies including oxygen, Mr. Maron responded by
arranging for a lifesaving oxygen processor to be donated to the Hôpital Sacré Coeur
through contributions from Holy Name Medical Center, its employees (including Mr.
Maron) and Bergen Anesthesia Associates. Collaboration with Burn Advocates, Oxygen
Generating Systems International (OGSI) and the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines resulted
in a life-sustaining processor being delivered by cruise ship to Haiti, where it was
transported by an armed United Nations team to Hôpital Sacré Coeur.
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3. Mr. Maron decided to make his first visit to Haiti to be sure that the oxygen
processor was properly installed and running at the Hôpital Sacré Coeur. However, when
he arrived in Milot, instead of overseeing an installation, he grabbed a pickax and began
digging a trench and laying pipe. The generator, which was too large and too noisy to be
housed inside, had been left outside, 400 feet from the hospital in five pieces, each
weighing more than 1000 pounds. Mr. Maron and Dr. Finley scrambled to find day
laborers to work alongside them to dig the trench across a busy road to the hospital and
lay pipe. Several weeks later, a Holy Name employee was deployed to Haiti to thread
hosing through the pipe to transport the oxygen from the generator into the hospital.
Since his initial trip in 2010, Mr. Maron has been returning regularly to volunteer
at Hôpital Sacré Coeur, which has become Holy Name Medical Center’s sister hospital.
He welcomed the medical director of Hôpital Sacré Coeur, Dr. Harold Prévil, to Holy
Name for briefings, at which time Dr. Prévil was honored at the Holy Name Founders
Ball, in New York City. Mr. Maron also arranged for a six-week intensive observational
experience at Holy Name for three nurse anesthetists from Hôpital Sacré Coeur.
Most recently Mr. Maron has been consulting with Hôpital Sacré Coeur’s
administration regarding organizing and running the hospital, putting financial controls
and operational structures into place to help manage costs and facilitate patient
processing – this, at a hospital which two years ago was operating under primitive
medical conditions with a front yard converted into a dumping ground for medical waste.
He was recently appointed to the Board of Directors of the CRUDEM Foundation, which
supports Hôpital Sacré Coeur, and plans to provide onsite guidance and expertise to the
hospital in Milot four times a year for the foreseeable future.
The recipient of numerous honors and awards, Mr. Maron was the only hospital
CEO recognized as one of the 25 Heroes of Haiti by the UJA Federation of Northern
New Jersey in May 2010. He will receive the prestigious Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton
Award at the SOAR! Annual Dinner benefiting the Aged and Infirm Religious in October
2012 in New York City.
Michael A. Maron often remarks that Holy Name Medical Center is unique
because of the culture of selflessness that is central to its mission. To the Holy Name
community that extends far beyond Teaneck, Bergen County, and the State of New
Jersey, Mr. Maron epitomizes that selflessness, and we are proud to nominate him for
Modern Healthcare’s Community Leadership Award.
Submitted on behalf of Holy Name Medical Center
by Jacqueline B. Kates
Community Relations and Public Affairs Coordinator
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