Devereux President’s Blog

I am pleased to announce that long-time Devereux employee, Maggie McGill, has been named Chief Operating Officer at Devereux. Maggie had most recently served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, but her career with Devereux goes back much further.

Maggie started working for Devereux in 1975 as a residential care provider at our Kanner Center in West Chester, working primarily with children with autism. Maggie excelled in this role. She was well liked by our clients and their parents, as well as the staff with whom she worked. While well suited in this position, Maggie had other aspirations.

In 1984, then Devereux President & CEO, Ron Burd, was impressed with Maggie as he watched her sitting on the floor working with the children. Ron pulled Maggie aside and asked her what she would like to be doing with her career at Devereux. Maggie responded, “I want to go back to school and become Devereux’s Chief Financial Officer.”

While not the response Ron expected, he was nonetheless taken with her ambition and in 1990, awarded Maggie the first-ever Weaver Falberg Leadership Fellowship Promise. This annual award recognizes one individual with outstanding leadership potential, who is an exemplary role model and demonstrates a solid commitment to the mission of Devereux.

With this award came a scholarship that Maggie used to pursue an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Twelve years after completing her MBA, in 2004 Maggie was named Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer. Maggie’s success with Devereux as a residential care provider, supervisor, operations manager, Chief Financial Officer, and now Chief Operating Officer is rooted in her commitment to the mission of Devereux.

Her clear understanding of the important work Devereux does, has served her well in the thirty-three years she has been with Devereux and will serve her well as she helps lead us to Devereux’s 100^th anniversary.

I hope you will join me in wishing Maggie much success in her new role with Devereux.

Tomorrow, Founder’s Day, is Miss Devereux’s 123rd birthday. Every year, as we celebrate this important day, I am reminded of how the organization has changed and evolved in its ninety-six year history. I wonder, too, what Miss Devereux would think of the organization today and some of the current milestones, as well as challenges, we face.

As the nation’s largest, non-profit provider of behavioral health services, our success arises from the individualized, strength-based services we provide, services that she pioneered. As Miss Devereux said, “Every child is a program.” Her philosophy of care was identifying each individual’s strengths and building a program from that foundation. I think she would be gratified to see that our industry is finally understanding the wisdom of her insight into how to make a difference with each and every individual.

Today our organization is financially strong, in part because of the value of beautiful real estate Miss Devereux purchased across the country. I think Miss Devereux would be pleased by the funding we receive today from the government, support that she lacked in the early years. However, with government funding comes regulatory uncertainty, a concern that will continue to occupy us over the coming years. The generosity of Devereux families, community leaders, and foundations continues to support Devereux today as it did when Miss Devereux ran the organization. We must remain attentive to our mission to insure the continued good will of our supporters.

When looking back nearly 100 years at the contributions Miss Devereux made, it is significant to remember that she did this at a time when women were not afforded the right to vote. Critics went so far as to call her “a starry-eyed female, who has neither a husband nor a graduate degree; and who thus flouts the qualifications demanded by both Nature’s law and her academic betters for the role to which she has presumed.” Miss Devereux led the organization for forty years, surrounded by men in key leadership roles.

Today’s senior management team includes many outstanding men and women. Maggie McGill, a 30-year veteran at Devereux, last month assumed the role of Chief Operating Officer. Women also fill the strategic positions of Chief Clinical Officer, Senior Vice President of External Affairs, General Counsel, Vice President of Organizational Development, two operational Vice Presidents, Vice President of Product Development, and Executive Directors of eight of our fourteen centers. No doubt Miss Devereux would be very pleased that her organization is developing so many outstanding women leaders.

Miss Devereux would also be proud of our front-line staff who are, and always will be, the backbone of the organization. Their commitment to the individuals we serve, and to our mission, gives me confidence in Devereux’s future.

On this day before Founder’s Day, I am reminded of how far we have come and how successful we have been, in large part, thanks to the vision of Miss Devereux and the excellent work of our dedicated employees. I thank all of the Devereux stakeholders: employees; trustees; donors; and community leaders who support our mission each and every day. To Miss Devereux, I bid you a very Happy Birthday.

Bob Kreider