NORWAY — Stephens Memorial Hospital’s new president has wasted no time immersing himself in the community he now calls home. You might say he came to Maine for a job and stayed for the official State Treat.

“I knew MaineHealth by its reputation within the industry,” Jeff Noblin told the Advertiser Democrat during his sixth week on the job. “I realized the position at Stephens was open and began researching what would attract me to Maine.

“Why would I move north? The whoopie pie, I have found out, is a big undisclosed attraction.”

It is not just the available sweets that have impressed Noblin, who joined Maine’s largest healthcare system from Pleasant Valley Hospital in West Virginia.

“MaineHealth was a big reason,” he shared. “And the more I learned about Stephens, about it being an award-winning, high-performing hospital, and the more I researched Norway? My wife and I both felt like the Lord was leading us here to be in this community, and to raise our family here. We decided this was the kind of place we could call home.”

For the time being, Noblin is living a sort of bachelor’s life, staying in temporary housing just minutes from SMH. His wife Dean, a school principal, and daughters Victoria (15) and Daphne (13) are finishing up their school years and will make the move to Maine at the beginning of July.

“In terms of likeness of community, I can tell you I have been blow away by how gracious and welcoming everyone has been here,” Noblin said. “I would put this community up against everywhere else I have ever lived.

“There is a quality of life in small towns, no matter where you are, that is hard to replicate in a larger metro area. What Norway offers is a big reason why my family chose to be here. Given the age of our kids, we wanted this type of environment to raise them in.”

Noblin grew up in Tallahassee, Florida and Dean in Savannah, Georgia. They got their first taste of small town life in Centre, Alabama (population 3,500), where he was chief executive officer at Cherokee Medical Center. He jokes that during his 22-year career each job change led him consistently north.

“From southwest Georgia to south-central Mississippi, to northeastern Alabama, southern middle Tennessee, the Ohio River valley region of West Virginia, Tennessee, and then West Virginia,” he recounted. “And now Norway, Maine. I keep heading north, I’m not sure why that is. I like snow, but I think I’m going to learn to love it.”

Noblin came to healthcare administration through a somewhat novel and bygone choice: going through the phonebook. As a student studying business and communications at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, Noblin was required to complete an internship related to his major.

“Not having any idea what I wanted to do when I grew up, I looked through a phone book,” he said. “I found the Greenville hospital system and called them up. I explained what I was trying to do and asked how they’d like a free intern for a few months.

“So they invited me down and I interned in the corporate communications department. I got my first taste of healthcare and within a week I knew that’s what I wanted to do. It was exciting, it felt like meaningful work.”

After earning his bachelor’s degree, Noblin continued his education at the Medical University of South Carolina where he completed his master’s degree in healthcare administration. He spent three years at Phoebe Putney Health System in Albany, Georgia, including one year as an administrative fellow.

Opportunity led him to South Mississippi Surgery Center in Hattiesburg. As the administrator for the start-up surgery practice, Noblin was tasked with building a staff from scratch.

“That was my first true leadership opportunity, doing something totally different (than hospital administration],” he said. “It was a brand-new ambulatory surgery center.

“I came in and finished the construction and staffed it from day one with all supplies and hired all the staff. It was an interesting, challenging situation.”

Among the challenges? With no operating budget ahead of opening for business, Noblin used his own credit card to purchase office supplies.

Of the hospitals Noblin has served as chief executive, SMH is the smallest bed size. But Noblin is keenly aware of its importance to western Maine communities. Hospitals in Rumford to the north, Bridgton to the south and Lewiston to the east all closing their maternity units recently, MaineHealth’s Mountain Region hospitals in Norway, Farmington and Conway, NH have become the primary obstetrics option for expectant families from the surrounding areas.

“We are more than glad to step up to that challenge, he said. “We are planning much more aggressive growth in obstetrics, [and] with women’s health in general. In particular, we want to grow services for [underserved communities].

“That’s one thing you’ll find with me. I am very focused on growth to provide more services, so that folks in Norway and Oxford Hills don’t have to travel for their healthcare. They should get good, quality healthcare close to home.”

Noblin said it’s also important to increase the momentum of SMH’s role in solving addiction with resources for treatment. The hospital he previously worked at in Point Pleasant, West Virginia had a small residential treatment program and Noblin knows that inpatient care is in short supply.

“I see opportunities to grow services around substance use disorder issues but also for behavioral health,” he said. “One of the things I’d like to investigate is developing an inpatient component to our recovery program.

“[One possibility is to] grow Dr. Lisa Miller’s program in addiction medicine and provide recovery resources and counseling with more of a medical lens. Another is upstream and downstream services. From intake and maybe an inpatient program, to developing partnerships with residential treatment facilities where patients have longer term options for recovery support. And continue support of organizations like Western Maine Addiction Recovery Initiative.”

His tenure is just beginning but Noblin is impressed by the commitment of SMS staff, which he sees as an extension of the community.

“I am blown away by how many employees have been here 20, 30 or more years,” he marveled. Today, you really don’t find employees who work for one organization for that length of time unless it’s really someplace special. I feel like the employees, even the board members, create the ‘Stephens family.’ That was a big attraction for me for sure. I think it differentiates this hospital from so many others.”