Mike Maguire helped shape healthcare in Brevard County. He leaves behind a legacy of service, faith and compassion at Health First and beyond.
Mike Maguire, who served as the first President of Health First’s Board of Trustees, died in May at the age of 99. He spent a lifetime helping others, including his part in the formation of Health First, an effort to bring specialized care to all areas of Brevard.
BREVARD COUNTY • ROCKLEDGE, FLORIDA — “We started that hospital.”
That’s what Mike Maguire once told one of his daughters as they drove past Health First’s Palm Bay Hospital. Mike had seen how some people in South Brevard faced long drives to receive hospital care.
“That’s just wrong,” Joanne Maguire later recalled as a reflection of her father’s lifelong concern for access to care.
Those few words capture a pattern that defined much of Mike’s life’s work: seeing a need, finding resources to address it and taking action.
Mike passed away May 9, 2026, at the age of 99.
After emigrating to the U.S. from Ireland, Mike enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in World War II, including during the Battle of the Bulge. He earned a Purple Heart and Bronze Star for his service.
Mike Maguire in his U.S. Army uniform during World War II. A Purple Heart and Bronze Star recipient who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, Maguire survived combat in France and went on to spend 65 years married to his high school sweetheart, Gloria, raising 12 children together.
He later told his children that when his unit came under attack in France, he prayed for just one year with his high school sweetheart, Gloria.
His prayers were answered. The couple was married for 65 years and raised 12 children together.
Mike Maguire is seen, center, with his wife, Gloria, on his left, daughter Joanne, on his right, and extended family. Mike, who served as the first President of Health First’s Board of Trustees, and Gloria had 12 children, 20 grandchildren and more than 20 great-grandchildren.
After completing his engineering career with 13 years in leadership roles at Harris Corporation, Mike spent decades in “retirement” working to make healthcare more accessible for Brevard County residents.
Mike played a key role in shaping the Health First many Brevard residents know today. He served on the board for Holmes Regional Medical Center before helping launch Health First as an Integrated Delivery Network (IDN) in 1995, creating a more connected healthcare system for Brevard County.
This milestone grew from the work of Mike and others who advocated for greater access to healthcare services and coordinated care throughout Brevard County.
Joanne described her father as “brilliant,” an extremely hard worker devoted to Gloria and their 12 children.
“He was tough, but fair,” she said. “He was a man determined to make a difference for the betterment of the world, of his family, of his community.”
Throughout his life, he identified problems and worked to solve them — in business, his church and the community.
Mike was firm in his belief – people shouldn’t receive different healthcare outcomes solely because of where they live or the resources they have.
In Brevard County, he saw firsthand that access to healthcare often depended on where people lived. To him, quality care should be available countywide, Joanne said.
Mike Means, Health First’s first president and CEO, and Mike Maguire, the first Chairman of the Board, are seen at a Health First event.
Mike Means, Health First co-founder and the system’s first president and CEO, said Mike Maguire’s focus never wavered, “Mike’s priority was always to raise the level of care available to all of our market and patients,” Means said.
A new era for Brevard healthcare
Forming Health First in 1995 was more than an organizational change. Alongside Health First co-founders Means and Larry Garrison, its chief operating officer, Mike envisioned the future of healthcare as a coordinated system serving all of Brevard County.
Means described Mike as “the consummate Board Chairman,” saying he balanced extensive business experience with a commitment to serving local healthcare needs. He recalled sharing with Maguire an early concept, scribbled on a now-shuttered Bernard’s Surf cocktail napkin, for an integrated health system in Brevard.
“Being the big thinker Mike was, he loved it,” Means said. “He counseled that it would be a tough sell and that it would engender opposition from all who were benefitting from the status quo. That being the case, Mike told us he would support the idea, but selling the job was up to us.”
Mike later became chair of the first Health First Board of Trustees and remained a champion of the organization for decades.
“We are deeply grateful for Mr. Maguire’s extraordinary service to our community and for his pivotal support of the collaboration that formed Health First in 1995,” said Chris Kern, Vice President of Philanthropy for Health First. “His active leadership, followed by decades of quiet championing and generous philanthropic support, helped strengthen our mission and extend compassionate, quality care across Brevard County.”
In addition to his leadership, Mike continued serving the board for decades and helped guide Health First from its formation into the mission-centered organization it is today. A mission that remains focused on improving the health and wellness of the communities we serve.
Mike’s support was more than board service. He and Gloria also generously supported the Health First Foundation, reflecting their shared beliefs that exceptional healthcare should remain close to home.
“Mike Maguire believed in exceptional local healthcare, and he not only supported it in his leadership capacity on our board, but he supported it financially through his charitable gifts to the Health First Foundation,” Kern said.
In a previous Foundation profile, Mike himself wrote: “I take comfort in knowing that after I am gone, our gift will continue to help Health First in its mission to provide compassionate, quality healthcare to our community.”
Gloria also served as a volunteer with Hospice of Health First.
But in the final chapters of their lives, Health First came full circle for the Maguires.
After years spent caring about Health First, in their times of need, the organization’s caregivers were there for them. After Gloria suffered a stroke, Hospice stepped in until she passed in 2013. Years later, Mike also received care at Health First’s William Childs Hospice House.
“We were just blown away by the care, the compassion and the quality of the support our parents were given at the end,” Joanne said.
When Mike passed, and people began asking where they could contribute memorial gifts, the answer was clear: Hospice of Health First and the William Childs Hospice House.
“You have the impulse to go out there and be of service and help in whatever way you can,” Joanne shared of others who might be inspired to give back, just like her dad. “I think that that would be what he would say – what he hopes is the lesson of his life.”
Those places Mike helped build for others in their hour of need became just what he and his family needed. Because, at the end, Mike Maguire’s legacy isn’t about board meetings or strategic plans. It was about providing hope and healing for all.
Decades after seeing needs in his community and doing something about them, what was Mike Maguire’s greatest legacy?
It was knowing what compassionate care should feel like.
And, of course, doing his part to make sure that happened.
