LEADING BY EXAMPLE Susan Davis steps up in support of her beliefs with a $1 million gift
W BY STEVE BORNHOFT
“I feel very fortunate to have spent 14 years with an organization that is faith-based and has a deep sense of spirituality.” — SUSAN DAVIS
16 Sacred Heart Foundation
When Susan Davis’ father believed strongly in something, it didn’t matter to him what was usual or customary. What mattered was doing the right thing. It was on that basis that Herbert “Lee” Davis went to court seeking custody of his then-only child, who was about to turn 4. Mr. Davis believed Susan’s best interests would be served if he were the parent in her life each day. “Fathers getting custody, that just didn’t happen in the 1950s,” Susan said. “My father knew what he was up against, but he went forward anyway and he prevailed. And, from that point forward, he tried always to make sure that my life experiences were not diminished by the fact that there was no mother in my life. “My dad was both father and mother to me.” So it was that he escorted Susan to mother-daughter events. And he tried to become a Brownie troop leader. In that effort, he was ahead of his time, but he felt like he had to try. Susan completed elementary school in New Jersey and was about to enter junior high when her life suddenly and dramatically changed. Her father wasn’t perfect; he had a weakness for placing bets with bookies. Eventually, that habit translated to financial straits that made moving an imperative and, without warning, Lee Davis packed up the car one day and headed for upstate New York.
“My father had a job selling pharmaceutical drugs for Hoffman-La Roche, and one of his customers was a surgeon who owned a dude ranch,” Susan recalled. “The doctor had always told my father that he could come up to his ranch and get a job anytime he wanted it and, when the need arose, Dad took him up on the offer.” Mr. Davis became the “social director” for the dude ranch in exchange for room and board. He arranged activities, including square dances, bobsledding, horseback riding and rodeos. During the day, he taught math at a local high school. Despite his struggles, Lee Davis, who died in 2017, instilled in his daughter a stubborn sense of optimism and a work ethic that may have exceeded his own — so much so that it’s not possible to carry on a conversation with Susan for long without her touching upon one or both those qualities. As the CEO and President of Sacred Heart Health System, a position she held for six years beginning in 2012, Susan had a small sign in her office that read simply, “It CAN Be Done.” That was an outlook, she said, that she intended for all of her senior managers to embrace. She is herself an impressive demonstration of the power of that affirmation. And she is a woman, said Carol Carlan, President of the Sacred Heart Foundation, who “has made a difference wherever she has been.”
