Dwight Gascho // A 36-Year Legacy
In today's world, few people hold a job for more than 10 years anymore, let alone for 20 or even 30. Then there is Dwight Gascho, who recently finished his tenure on the Scheurer Health Board of Trustees after a short 36 years.
It's hard to put into words the impact that Dwight Gascho has had on Scheurer Health since first joining the board in 1987 and then becoming the President & CEO in 1990, a position he held until 2016. Since his retirement, he has stayed on the board, continuing his guidance of the organization he came to live, breathe and love for just shy of four decades.
Dwight reflected back on his board seat first came about back when Ronald Reagan was still in the Oval Office, "I was getting ready for wheat harvest, working on my combine and I got a call from Carol Diener, who was on the Scheurer Hospital Board of Trustees. Carol wondered if I had any interest in serving on the board. I was self employed in agricultural and serving as the Executive Director of Bluewater Youth for Christ. I went to see Paul Clabuesch, President at Thumb National Bank, and chairman of the hospital board. We discussed my responsibilities and I decided to accept Carol's invitation to join the board in 1987."
Fast forward three years and the hospital was looking for a new leader and administrator. It was Paul Clabuesch who once again convinced Dwight to take the top job. "I said, ‘Paul, you’re dreaming.’ Why would a little farm boy from Pigeon, Michigan go in and sit at the executive desk at a hospital? He said, ‘No, Dwight. We don’t care about any of that. We want somebody that the people know and that people trust. We want somebody that knows the employees and knows the dynamic of the community. We’ll teach you all the other stuff.’”
“The first while was just crisis control. Back then, the hospital was financially struggling and morale was low. We didn’t really have the money to finish projects properly. I even went to the (hospital) Auxiliary so we could buy a fax machine. That first while, all I did was simply listen. Just listen and listen and listen and there was a line out the door, almost literally. People wanted to come and talk to me about what they needed in their departments and what we needed to do to succeed.”
With all of that listening, Dwight was sculpting a grass roots movement that united the work force, established a quality of care that is still second-to-none all these years later and shortly thereafter, the hospital started to show a modest profit. What finally put the community’s minds at ease, including Dwight, was the announcement and fruition of Country Bay Village, our independent senior living community, now home to a total of 51 apartments and condos on Scheurer’s main campus.
“That really was the turning point. It was about that same time that we met Dr. Scott Reiter, which was by chance and only by the Lord above having his hand involved. Some of things that happened to make this place successful were beyond coincidence. The fact that Joanne and John Schaefer were in Pennsylvania playing cards at Scott Reiter’s parents’ house and happened to mention Scheurer Hospital; that just proves it. Dr. Reiter brought us a number of doctors to Scheurer, which built on everything else we were putting together.” If anyone has ever met Dwight, his personability and refusal to take credit will quickly be evident. “What happened, I believe, was that the employees helped turn the organization. They represented and advocated for the hospital to become stronger. So many people and so many little things played a role. The free coffee played a role and they were willing to give me a chance.”
When Dwight first took over as the leader of Scheurer Hospital in 1990, the organization was comprised of 130 employees. By the time he retired from his full-time role in 2016, Scheurer Health had grown to 475 strong – a growth of a modest 265%.
One of the biggest changes which made that possible was Scheurer’s designation as a critical-access hospital in the year 2000. It enabled cost-based reimbursement with Medicare, keeping more local dollars in the community and allowing Scheurer to plow those dollars right back into the local economy. That designation also opened the door for Scheurer to attract more doctors and establish a robust network of Primary Care clinics across the Thumb, now in Bad Axe, Caseville, Elkton, Pigeon and Sebewaing.
Dwight firmly believes every expansion has been made possible by the establishment of a strong culture inside of Scheurer. “That’s what you want to instill in your employees, a defense of that culture. So first of all, they have to appreciate it. And to appreciate it, it has to be worth appreciating. It’s a whole process; but then once you get it, it can be quickly damaged. To enrich an organization’s culture, it must be reinforced every single day with every single interaction.”
Dwight retired as President & CEO at the age of 68 and was able to pass the baton of Scheurer’s success to Terry Lerash, who himself recently retired at the end of 2022, who now passes things onto Dr. Ross Ramsey – someone Dwight recruited to Scheurer more than a decade ago. All the while, Dwight has remained as a prominent figure and guidepost on the Scheurer Health Board of Trustees.
Now at the age of 75, Dwight passes the torch onto the very people that he recruited and introduced to the board, which includes current board chairperson Brian Keim. At the May 2023 board meeting Brian Keim presented Dwight with an official board resolution and as Dwight refers to it as, “the Empire State Building in crystal” for his efforts over the last 36 years.
Dwight referenced a famous evangelist for inspiration as he reflected back on his Scheurer tenure, “Billy Graham once said that the key to life is to find people you enjoy being around and then grow old together. There’s something to be said for that. There's a part that Scheurer will always be a part of me. It wasn't a passing opportunity that led to another opportunity to another one. It became who I was and Scheurer, to some extent, became who I was from the influences that I was able to exert on the organization. Those memories are now treasures to me."
And as only Dwight could do, he concluded his career's reflection with an enormously amount of underselling. "There's a legacy in there somewhere. I'm just proud to have been a part of it. I just couldn't be prouder to be Scheurer."
Upon Dwight’s retirement in 2016 the Scheurer Health Foundation established the Dwight Gascho Leadership Fund, which was created to support further education, leadership development and recognition of its outstanding leaders on an annual basis. Past recipients of the “Dwight Gascho Leadership Award” include Laurie Polega of Diagnostic Imaging, Marci Rievert of Acute Care and Lori Sweetman of the former Long Term Care unit. Over the last seven years, the leadership fund has grown from wide community support.
If you would like to help support the future of Scheurer’s leadership in Dwight’s honor, go to www.scheurer.org/donate
