The first thing Holy Name Medical Center CEO Mike Maron said after his hospital received an extraordinary $75 million gift from the Doug Noble Family Foundation — believed to be the largest-ever donation to any Catholic hospital in the country — was how could it help others be so blessed.
Catholic hospitals, to which Maron has dedicated his extraordinary career, are struggling nationwide. Maron said he hopes when word of this gift reaches many other ears, it will spur others to act, too.
There’s greater meaning, Maron said.
“This speaks at so many levels to the divine intervention,” he told BINJE. “The fact that the Noble family would think so highly of a Catholic institution is inspirational. Our hope and our prayer is that it inspires others to be so reflective.”
Maron noted — befitting of the Catholic mission — that Doug Noble was an ordinary man who enabled his foundation to leave an extraordinary mark on the world.
“Doug Noble was very accomplished as a doctor — I don’t want to diminish that in any way,” Maron started. “But in many ways, he was just an ordinary person in the community.
“He was not the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He did not grow up with some enormous family trust. In fact, if you knew him — if you knew his mother, Joan — you would never know that they had such extraordinary wealth. For the family to choose to share that with Holy Name is …”
Maron’s voice trails off for a bit.
A life well lived — one that has seen Maron be able to have an impact not just in Teaneck and North Jersey, but in Haiti, where he and Holy Name operate the only full-scale hospital in country — has shown him that there is a higher purpose.
He sees it in others.
“Doug Noble was someone who started humbly, grew to be very successful, and then chose to give it back,” Maron said. “The fact that he wasn’t even here to do it himself, but that he entrusted his mother to do so, shows his deep faith in family. That is what Holy Name stands for — trust and faith in the community.
“This speaks, at so many levels, to Catholic principles that we hope will endure and really are at the heart of modern healing. As technologically advanced as we get, and as good as we get with all the interventions and the diagnostics that we can do, at the end of the day, humans touching humans, both physically and emotionally and spiritually, is the strongest healing power.”
The transformational moment may have been celebrated Monday. But Maron feels it is the culmination of a lifetime of events in the community — and at Holy Name.
He pointed to the hospital’s longtime logo, a dove with DNA strands in its wings.
“There’s multiple meanings to that DNA,” he said. “It’s not just a recognition of science but the connectedness of all of humanity. It represents the fact that no matter whether we’re living or past, there is an absolute connectedness that exists. This gift was born from that connectedness.”
He noted that Doug Noble, like himself, was a graduate of Bergen Catholic.
He noted that the Noble’s priest, Father Roy, was his priest in Oradell for years — one who was a great servant of God to Maron’s mother in her final days.
“When my mother was ill, he was always so kind to come by the house and give her communion when he could,” he said. “He sat with her, and talked with her, giving her comfort. He became a very powerful force in my mother’s life.”
Father Roy wasn’t the only one who was close to Maron’s mom.
“When I met Joan,” he said. “One of the first words she whispered to me was, ‘I loved your mother. We used to chat at the church steps after every mass all the time.’”
This connectiveness doesn’t happen by chance, Maron said.
Divine intervention? Maron is sure of it.
“For this to happen when things here are really challenging, when we’re faced with all sorts of choices that we have to make – tradeoffs, day in and day out, because financially things are tight — is incredible,” he said.
“How does that happen? How do all of those forces align and converge at the same time for the benefit of so many? The only way I can describe it, and I’ve seen many things in my lifetime, is absolutely divine intervention.”
