From dishwasher to top dog, retiring Wolfson president led career in children's health
At the beginning of his 44-year career working in children's hospitals, Michael Aubin had a less than auspicious job title.
He was a dishwasher. He was 16 and had wanted a car. His father told him he had to pay for the insurance. So he rode his bike to work at a children's hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, to get that car.
"Talk about starting at the bottom," he said.
Aubin was later promoted to pot scrubber and then short-order cook. But that early string of jobs failed to sell him on children's hospitals.
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He had no inkling that his future was in running large hospitals that help ill children get well, engaging with government and philanthropists to raise money, lobbying managed health care and Medicaid for cost-reimbursement rates and overseeing hospital construction projects. He had no idea he would lead his last stop, Wolfson Children's Hospital in Jacksonville, through a pandemic.
"I thought I wanted to be a lawyer," he said.
Wolfson president Michael Aubin oversaw expansion of beds and care
Aubin, 67, retired Monday after 11 years as hospital president of Wolfson and two years as chief philanthropy officer for Baptist Health Foundation. The health system announced Friday that Allegra Jaros will join Wolfson as president in January. She has served in that capacity at John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, N.Y., since 2014.
Previously Aubin was founding administrator and chief operating officer at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital in Tampa and founding associate administrator of the new H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, also in Tampa, among other leadership positions.
During his tenure at Wolfson, the hospital has grown from 216 to 276 beds, added five emergency department satellite locations, expanded behavioral health for children and adolescents and expanded neuroscience care.
Wolfson has added the Bower Lyman Center for Medically Complex Children, the Center for Fetal Diagnosis & Therapy and the Duran Genetics Center, as well as the seven-location Wolfson Children's Rehabilitation and advanced cancer therapies, including bone marrow transplantation.
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Aubin also oversaw construction of the J. Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver Tower, an 11-story $200 million, patient-care facility shared by Wolfson and its parent that opened in 2021, as well as the seven-story $225 million Borowy Family Children’s Critical Care Tower that opened this year.
The Borowy Center alone shows Aubin's vision, said Michael DuBow, chairman of Wolfson's board of directors.
"We are so fortunate to have an industry-leading, state-of-the-art facility to provide unparalleled care for children and families in our region, which became a reality under his strong and steady leadership," DuBow said. "In addition, his impactful role in fundraising has helped ensure Wolfson … will continue to offer critical services that meet the needs the community and greater regional area for many years to come."
Michael Mayo, president and CEO of Baptist Health, said Aubin transformed Wolfson into a network of children’s health care that includes five pediatric specialty centers in Florida and Georgia, pediatric emergency centers throughout the greater Jacksonville area as well as one in Tallahassee, and a state-designated pediatric trauma center.
"His success with developing collaborative relationships and philanthropic support has led to impactful programs such as The Players Center for Child Health and expansion of services such as behavioral health for children and adolescents," Mayo said. "As a result of his leadership, children and families who didn’t have easy access to the high-quality, specialized care provided at a major children’s hospital now do."
Almost didn't happen
High praise for a former hospital dishwasher who had to be convinced that health care administration was the way to go.
After a semester in college, he fell in love with history and abandoned the lawyer plan. But his college mentor and his father expressed concern about his career prospects.
"My adviser suggested I look at other fields," he said. "My father called, 'Can you make any money in history?'"
He later took on a newly established major in hospital administration and was hooked.
"I loved it," Aubin said, citing all the different aspects of that field, such as human resources, supply chains and finance. "It was interesting, so complicated. … Of course, service was important too."
Over the next 44 years, he witnessed massive changes in children's health care and in the finances of providing that care.
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Advances in medical care have more hospitalized children getting well and going home.
Earlier in his career, Aubin said, he and Santa made hospital visits at Christmas, going bed to bed "hugging every child," knowing that nine of 10 children there who were fighting cancer would die.
"The biggest change," he said, "today that's not the case any longer. Over 80% of children with cancer get cured. … It's just so incredible, enjoyable to see them."
Children's hospitals need advocacy and philanthropy
Meanwhile, the financial side of hospital administration has gone sideways.
"It's always been about reimbursement," he said. But the level of reimbursement has changed, he said, from hospitals being paid for their costs to negotiating with managed care companies about costs or following Medicaid rates, which are 50% of a children's hospital's business.
"Because I had an interest in government and how it worked, I engaged in advocacy, to improve safety and care and get paid more money for those we have to take care of," he said.
Among his focuses have been medically complex children, who are 3% to 5% of the population at children's hospitals but require 50% of the resources.
Emergency room visits and hospitalizations for such children can be cut in half, he said, "if we can intervene early on."
His advocacy works hand in hand with philanthropy, obtaining private funds for programs and services that don't pay for themselves.
"Children's hospitals are so dependent on philanthropy," he said.
In July 2020, Wolfson's philanthropy became dependent on Aubin. The person running Baptist Health Foundation at the time departed amid a $60 million fundraising campaign.
While at St. Joseph's, Aubin ran that hospital's philanthropic arm, so Mayo called on him to take on Baptist's. To start, it was temporary but a year later the additional duties became permanent. So in addition to being hospital president of Wolfson, he became Baptist's chief philanthropic officer.
A new strain on medical care
In 2019, Aubin had been pondering retirement.
"I thought it was time," he said, "but a couple of things happened."
COVID-19 for one. Then the philanthropy need. Then in 2021 the Borowy tower was underway.
The pandemic challenged Aubin and his staff like nothing else had.
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"It was scary at first," he said. "We didn't know how it was going to impact children. We didn't quite know how to treat it."
The initial strain did not have severe impacts on children. But the subsequent Delta variant did.
The loss was painful and frustrating, as was the reluctance of some parents to get themselves and their children vaccinated once the shots were available.
"We finally get the vaccine and people were still dying from it when it was preventable," he said. "There was no reason to fear."
Appreciative to the end
Aubin's retirement plan was to return to Tampa where he and wife Hillary still have a home. They hope to see more of their four children and two grandchildren and travel to "see the world."
Before departing, he gushed about Wolfson's staff, calling them "the most amazing team."
He said he hired top-quality people and just "let them do their job."
"It doesn't get better than that," Aubin said.
Wolfson is "sometimes the best-kept secret in town," he said. "You never know when you're going to need it."
bcravey@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4109
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Michael Aubin retires from Wolfson Children's Hospital in Jacksonville
