Robert Marble Honored by Riverside Health System and Riverside Walter Reed Hospital Founding Member of Riverside Walter Reed Hospital, Community Visionary, Volunteer, Newsman and Riverside Walter Reed Hospital Board Chairman Recognized for Service to Riverside and Our Communities
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Gloucester, Va. – This year, Riverside Health System and Riverside Walter Reed Hospital have taken occasion to honor one of our communities most influential citizens, Robert Marble. The Riverside Walter Reed Hospital founding member and community visionary has been honored with a Riverside Health System Board of Directors resolution presented earlier this year at Riverside’s corporate headquarters in Newport News, VA and most recently a luncheon was held in his honor at Riverside Walter Reed including health system corporate leadership, hospital board members, physicians and administration team members.
Marble has spent nearly a decade as the Riverside Walter Reed Hospital Board of Directors Chairman, nearly four decades volunteering for the Middle Peninsula community and 29 years as a Walter Reed Hospital Board member.
Over the last four decades, Bob Marble has heard it time and time again from his friends, neighbors and fellow Middle Peninsula residents. If it weren’t for the Riverside Walter Reed Hospital, they wouldn’t be alive today. “I’m very grateful to have people say how much the hospital has meant to the community,” Marble said. “That has always, from the beginning, been the main goal….serve the community.”
While no one can replace him or his vast contributions to Riverside and the Middle Peninsula, Dr. Richard Crowder has succeeded Marble as Chairman of the hospital Board of Directors. “Bob has served his fellow citizens tirelessly through these decades (and) epitomizes all that is good in volunteerism,” Dr. Crowder said. “His leadership has been strongly influenced by his inherent kindness, generosity, and equanimity. It is an honor to have him as a mentor and friend.”
Marble has been a leader in the healthcare community and of the Riverside Walter Reed Hospital since its beginning, Crowder added. “It was Bob, Mr. Edgar Pointer, Jr. and Dr. Raymond Brown who initiated the effort to bring a community hospital to the Middle Peninsula,” Crowder said. “Teaming with Riverside Hospital in Newport News, they brought this to reality in September of 1977. In the 38 years that have followed, Bob has continued to serve his community.”
Riverside Walter Reed Hospital opened its doors on September 13, 1977 as Walter Reed Memorial Hospital. Since 1977, the hospital has grown into a comprehensive, physician-led health system providing state-of-the-art healthcare with a compassionate and professional team.
Among the milestones included: In 1989, the Riverside Wellness and Fitness Center opened, offering prevention and rehabilitation programs. In 2003, Riverside acquired the Francis Sanders Nursing Home and Assisted Living Complex in Gloucester, now known as Riverside’s Sanders Retirement Community and Heron Cove at Sanders. By 2005, Riverside opened the Riverside Middle Peninsula Cancer Center, featuring cancer specialists offering the latest treatment options available. The Cancer Center has gone on to receive numerous awards at the regional and national level. The hospital itself has also continued to grow, expanding its emergency and intensive care services and receiving accolades for its quality of care both for patient experience and clinical outcomes.
Riverside Walter Reed Hospital Vice President/ Administrator Megan Kleckner (left), Robert Marble (center) and Richard Crowder, MD (right) with the RHS Board Resolution presented to Marble.
“The size, scope, and depth of our services have changed over the years, but we continued to define a remarkable tradition of providing the best care to all the communities we serve,” Marble said.
Marble has helped shape the Middle Peninsula in meaningful ways, contributing not only to the health of the residents through Riverside, but also the health of the community. He stood up the Gloucester bureau of the Daily Press and retired after more than four decades of service to the paper, having delivered news throughout the community and region.
He was instrumental in many of the region’s most noted non-profits, including service on the Gloucester Electoral Board for more than three decades and a member of the Board of Directors for the Sanders Foundation, Long Bridge Ordinary Foundation and the Gloucester Library Endowment Foundation. He was a charter member of the Gloucester Rotary Club, Gloucester Chamber of Commerce and the Ware River Yacht Club. In recognition of his service, Marble has been honored with various awards, including the Chamber of Commerce Businessman of the Year in 1989 and Chamber of Commerce John Hasty Award for Community Service in 2001.
The community is Marble’s home. That’s part of what made his work so meaningful. After Marble finished high school in Gloucester at the then Botetourt School, in 1944, he immediately entered the U.S. Army, where he was infantry trained and then deployed to Europe for the final months of World War II. When Marble returned home to Gloucester, he began working at the Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal, where he’d spent time writing in high school about regional sports. Marble was eventually offered a stringer position with the Associated Press and ultimately asked to set up, staff, open and run the Daily Press’ new Gloucester bureau.
“I’m interested in people, the community,” Marble said. “Those were interesting times.” And they only got more interesting as Marble continued to get more involved with philanthropic endeavors, the county government and business organizations. It was through his involvement he came to know the other founders of Riverside Walter Reed and part of the team that, from the beginning, was part of an advisory board exploring the need for a hospital in Gloucester and ultimately approaching Riverside in Newport News to back the project.
“I’ve learned a lot from the organizations I’ve been a part of,” Marble said. “I’ve been honored to serve.”
ABOUT RIVERSIDE ON THE VIRGINIA MIDDLE PENINSULA:
Riverside’s range of medical services offered on the Middle Peninsula are anchored by Riverside Walter Reed Hospital in Gloucester. Opened in 1977, the 67-bed acute care facility provides comprehensive services and state-of-the-art care and technology to the communities of the Middle Peninsula. Hospital services include emergency, inpatient and outpatient surgery, imaging and laboratory.
In addition to family medicine, internal medicine and general surgery practices, the 30-acre campus surrounding the hospital is home to the Riverside Wellness and Fitness Center, the Middle Peninsula Cancer Center, Riverside Home Care, a therapy suite that includes physical, nutrition, speech, hand and occupational therapies, cardiology, gastroenterology, nephrology, a neurology and sleep center, orthopedics, ophthalmology, pain management, physiatry, urology, vascular and women’s health.
Beyond the campus Riverside operates Mathews Medical Center, Fishing Bay Family Practice (including pediatrics) in Deltaville, White Stone Family Practice, and near the southern end of Gloucester, Hayes Medical Center and Hayes Walk-In Clinic. For older adults, Riverside opened the first fully deinstitutionalized nursing home in Virginia, Heron Cove at Sanders, in the court house area of Gloucester. Convalescent Centers are located in Mathews and Saluda. Riverside also runs Sanders Retirement Community, the only full continuing care retirement community in Gloucester County.
For more information on Riverside, visit www.riversideonline.com or:
Shannon Fedors
Marketing Business Partner, Riverside Middle Peninsula Service Area
(804) 693-8845
Shannon.Fedors@rivhs.com
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