Rob MacIsaac has just started his fifth career. And to confirm, we are talking about a fifth career, not merely a fifth job. MacIsaac, LLB’87, is the new president and chief executive of Hamilton Health Sciences, a regional super-hospital with a staff of more than 11,700 employees and 1,800 physicians and a budget of about $1.2 billion.
“I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunities I’ve had and this is probably the biggest challenge I’ve taken on,” MacIsaac said. “Every change I’ve had has been challenging and has provided interesting opportunities to influence public policy and to help people.”
MacIsaac’s route into public service wasn’t intentional. While he was interested in public policy and politics while growing up in Burlington, he came out of Western Law thinking he would practise commercial real estate on Bay Street. He summered and articled at Goodmans, then remained for a year as an associate after his 1989 call to the bar.
Yet, his hometown beckoned. He moved back to join a small firm he operated with his brother. He would remain in private practice from 1990-97, doing everything from residential real estate to duty counsel work.
His career path took a twist when he got the idea that running for Burlington City Council might advance his law practice. Even if he lost, he figured, he’d benefit from the publicity. As it turned out, he won. What he didn’t realize is the demands of council work would port him to his second career. He served as mayor of Burlington for three terms, from 1997-2006. “Being a mayor is probably the funnest job I’ll ever have. There was never a Sunday night where I wasn’t excited about going to work on Monday morning.”
Fun though it was, nine years was enough. He figured if he didn’t move on to something else, he’d become a career politician. That was never his plan. So what would be career number three?
The opportunity came through his connections as mayor. He knew the leaders of all the municipalities that ring the western end of Lake Ontario, and he’d worked with the provincial government on several matters. The province needed someone to run Metrolinx, an agency formed in 2006 to connect their various municipal transit systems into a cohesive regional grid. As first chair of Metrolinx, MacIsaac helped design the Big Move, a plan announced in 2008 that coordinates expansion of the regional transit system over 25 years.
The move to career number four started via a telephone call while he was watching his daughter play soccer. He was asked if he might be interested in taking a job as president of Mohawk College. With the Big Move set in motion, he was indeed ready for a change. The resulting five years at Mohawk were a great experience, he said. “It’s a very gratifying kind of work to do. You can help somebody transform themselves into something better.”
A pattern emerges that defines his public service work. As mayor, he tried to create places the citizens of Burlington would love. In transportation, he focused on the user experience. At Mohawk, he concentrated on serving the students.
Cue career number five, Hamilton Health Sciences, where he says his priority will be the people actually using the institution, the patients. Services must be delivered in a way that’s best for the patients, not the service providers, he insists.
“If there’s one pattern I’ve noticed over the past 20 years, it’s that government institutions have a natural gravity to provide services in a way that’s convenient to them as opposed to what’s convenient to the user. We have to keep fighting that.”
MacIsaac says changing careers is a difficult process and says law school is the place he acquired the basic tools he’s needed to navigate those changes. “That legal training has provided me with a huge advantage throughout my career. It’s given me a way to look at complex situations and sort of bring order to the chaos.”
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