"People realize pretty soon if you’re a person of your word. If you want respect, you have to give respect, and if you do that, it never goes unseen"
The weather was unseasonably cloudy and muggy while I was on assignment to Miami in the late winter of 2013, but my interview with Marcos Lapciuc supplied the missing rays of sunshine, with his positive, can-do attitude in the midst of his organization’s financial distress.
Two years earlier, Lapciuc had joined the board of trustees at Jackson Health Trust, where he hoped to share his financial smarts and business skills with America’s third-largest public hospital, which was dispensing some $500 million a year in charity care.
Little did he know the mess he was stepping into. The board soon promoted Lapciuc to treasurer. Taking a deep dive into Jackson’s finances, he discovered they were bleeding $400 million in red ink and on the verge of bankruptcy. Lapciuc, a savvy and determined Colombian-born Orthodox Jew with business interests in textiles, real estate, and consumer electronics, assumed the hospital’s chairmanship. He developed and implemented a bailout plan that quickly turned the huge debt into a surplus, winning widespread public acclaim and performing a major kiddush Hashem in the process.
Our interview (“Critical Care,” Issue #452) took place just as this financial turnaround was complete and Lapciuc was ready to pass the mantle to his successor and pursue his next career challenge.
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