To Gail Walling, M.D., it was about ideas. Always, ideas.
Harold M. Maurer, M.D., now stepping into a new role after having served as UNMC’s chancellor since 1998, is driven by ideas. And he drives them. He drives them relentlessly, until they come to fruition. You can see evidence of this everywhere on UNMC’s campus.
Under Dr. Maurer’s leadership, ideas have become new buildings, world-class facilities. Ideas have eventually taken the form of great faculty — researchers and teachers. They’ve been the juice that enticed movers and shakers to jump aboard the UNMC bandwagon, to breathtaking results. And ideas have borne fruit in breakthroughs. What Dr. Maurer likes to call Breakthroughs for Life.
Ideas: If they’re Dr. Maurer’s he shares them, Dr. Walling said. And if they’re yours, he shares them. They may as well have been his. She realized this the first time they met. Dr. Walling was president of the College of Medicine Alumni Association, and the alums had come up with an idea, a wonderful idea. This is the idea that would eventually become one of UNMC’s great traditions — the White Coat Ceremony.
When the idea was presented to Dr. Maurer, who was then dean of the college, he recognized its brilliance immediately. He’d already been thinking about doing something along those lines, and this was perfect. But it had to come from the dean’s office. It just had to.
Some of the alums were upset by this — this was their baby, after all. It had been their idea.
But Dr. Walling wasn’t worried: “I said, ‘Let me go and visit with him. I don’t think there’s a problem here.’”
They met. “We had a delightful conversation about what a great idea the White Coat Ceremony was,” Dr. Walling said. In the spirit of collaboration, they moved forward, and today you see the end result. “It has become a great tradition,” Dr. Walling said.
That meeting also sparked one of UNMC’s great partnerships, between Dr. Maurer and the Yanneys — Dr. Walling and her husband, businessman and philanthropist Michael Yanney.
Around the time Dr. Maurer was to become chancellor, Dr. Walling said, she suggested to him that the best thing he could do going forward would be to cultivate a “kitchen cabinet” of prominent Omaha businessmen.
“Within a matter of two weeks,” Dr. Walling said, “it was done.”
It hadn’t mattered whose idea it was. Dr. Maurer was driven. And once again, he was driving.
It's about goals
The goal, said Jennifer Larsen, M.D., vice chancellor for research. With Dr. Maurer, it’s always about the goal.
“One of the most important things I learned from Dr. Maurer is that you have to set a goal to reach it,” Dr. Larsen said. “And when it is time to set a goal, Dr. Maurer always encourages us to set the goal high. Even if it seems out of reach to some, you are more likely to move the entire organization toward that goal when it is a clear and aspirational goal.”
While researchers usually focus on National Institutes of Health research grants, Dr. Maurer thought more broadly. “As he often reminds me,” Dr. Larsen said, “‘all money is green.’”
So why talk about doubling research funding? “Because without that goal we would still think that $40 million or $50 million a year in research funding was outstanding,” Dr. Larsen said. “Instead, we achieved more than $100 million in research funding one year, and are now stretching toward $200 million in research funding.”
More funding means more research, attracting more scientists, building nationally recognized programs and increasing UNMC’s national ranking. With Dr. Maurer, the goal was always to take UNMC to world-class status.
It's about relationships
Relationships, said Jialin Zheng, M.D., associate vice chancellor for academic affairs. It’s about relationships.
Dr. Maurer always said that a world-class institution needs world-class partners. And partnership is relationship-based.
Dr. Zheng soon realized that as one of UNMC’s point people in China, it was his job to build bridges that could reach across oceans, one handshake at a time.
That’s how the boss did it. “He and Mrs. (Beverly) Maurer have put their time and effort in building a strong relationship and importantly, friendships, with Chinese government leaders, university administrators, faculty members and most importantly, students,” Dr. Zheng said.
Getting to where UNMC is today in China was tough. But with Dr. Maurer, that’s the point. These are true partnerships, not superficial photo-ops. “If it is easy, everyone can do it,” Dr. Zheng said. “These collaborations never come easy. It takes vision. It takes nonstop effort. It takes perseverance.”
And those, like Dr. Zheng, who have since taken leadership positions in the effort, have found Dr. Maurer still following up, still offering ideas. Still stressing the importance of relationships. UNMC’s partnership with Chinese institutions is “more focused and unique than any other U.S. institutions,” Dr. Zheng said.
It’s because, at UNMC, such partnership, “is not just an idea,” Dr. Zheng said. It is being built with a solid foundation, one handshake at a time.
It is being built with relationships.
It's about commitment
A commitment to students, said Dave Crouse, Ph.D., who held numerous posts at UNMC, including associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, before retiring last fall. Even an outsider could see it immediately, if you walked in on one of Dr. Maurer’s breakfast meetings with members of the student senate.
If the students had a concern, Dr. Maurer would turn immediately to the appropriate senior campus leader. “Do you know what they’re talking about?” Then: “Deal with it.”
“And then he would follow up,” Dr. Crouse said.
This does not mean the students always got what they wanted. (It was a running joke that there is still no swimming pool on campus.) But they mattered. They held weight with him.
And in turn, “He relied on the students in turn to support him in campus issues,” Dr. Crouse said. “He was not a bit shy.”
When there was an issue important to UNMC which might benefit from testimony before the NU regents or state legislature, Dr. Maurer asked students to be there.
And again and again, they made it happen, together.
“He works hard,” Dr. Crouse said. “He figures out what needs to be done, the right foundation, the right connections. I remember when he was raising money for the Sorrell Center. People sat at the table and said, ‘This can’t be done.’ He said, ‘You can think that if you want, but we are going to do it.’ He doesn’t take no for an answer.
“He is able to affect that change because he marshals the necessary resources.”
Including the students, who fought for him, the way he did for them.
National leader in childhood cancer
Peter Coccia, M.D., Ittner professor and vice chairman of pediatrics, has known the man he calls “Hal” since the mid-to-late 1970s. Dr. Maurer had helped form, and then chaired, the National Institutes of Health Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Study Group for 26 years, beginning in 1972. He’d gone beyond being a physician and researcher and stepped into the role of being a leader — making big things happen in the fight against childhood cancer.
Even then, Dr. Coccia could see some of the traits that would later serve Dr. Maurer as chancellor at UNMC.
Namely?
“He herds cats very well,” Dr. Coccia said.
But also, he was detailed, conscientious, kept people on task, demanded quality.
And he got things done through relationships. He shared great ideas — didn’t matter if they were his or yours. He set great goals, and then didn’t let anything get in the way. He was committed to those who will carry on in the future — the students, the patients.
He was driven. And he was driving. Always driving.
He’ll carry all of these qualities with him, as he enters his new role.
Dr. Maurer’s new role
Dr. Maurer plans to move to a new role with the university. On July 1, he will become a professor in the UNMC Department of Pediatrics and chancellor emeritus. He will devote much of his time to his new position at the University of Nebraska Foundation, spearheading fund raising for the Ambulatory Care Center and Cancer Center Campus, a $370 million project that will include space for cancer research and care, as well as a new multidisciplinary outpatient facility.
“I look forward to dedicating my time completely to fundraising for the new facilities, which will truly transform UNMC,” Dr. Maurer said.