Angela Hospice names new president/CEO

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Marti Coplai is Angela Hospice's new president and CEO
When Margot Parr succeeded Angela Hospice’s foundress, Sister Mary Giovanni, as president and CEO in 2015, her goal was to strengthen and prepare the organization for a strong future. Now four years later with that goal accomplished, Parr has passed the torch to Marti Coplai.

Marti, who has served as Executive Director since October 2015, took over as president and CEO on March 1, 2019, equipped with a rich history of experience in hospice and elder care, and a passion for the Angela Hospice mission.

HER STORY

In 1994, Marti’s 54-year-old mother-in-law was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Her family was devastated. They enlisted Angela Hospice to help them provide care at home.

“It was during that time…that I realized I had a skill or a gift, or just an ability to be able to support her and the rest of the family in a way that I hadn’t realized that I had in me, until I had that experience,” Marti said. “I also saw the positive impact of hospice care on our whole family.”

Marti’s life was busy raising children, running a marketing company, and caring for her grandmother. When her grandmother passed in 2001, Marti felt like she finally had the time to become a hospice volunteer, so she began working with Arbor Hospice near her home.

Outgoing CEO Margot Parr and Coplai  
accepting the Large Business of the 
Year
award for Angela Hospice at the
2019 L
ivonia Leadership Awards 
banquet.
“I envisioned I was going to be going out and supporting families like my family, with younger people dying in real tragic situations, but they kept sending me to nursing homes and patients who were quite elderly,” Marti said. And it was through that experience that she began specializing in care for patients with dementia.

She left her marketing career and began working for Arbor Hospice, before going on to work in senior living and memory care at Glacier Hills and then Evangelical Homes of Michigan, where she met Margot Parr. During that time she also earned her nursing home administrator’s license.

“I was thrilled in 2015 when Margot approached me with the possibility of returning to hospice — what had really motivated me to shift careers, to really change what I was doing in my life… and that I had a lot of passion for,” Marti explained. But she wasn’t without reservations.

LIVING THE MISSION

“I went online and looked at the mission and when I read the mission it caused me to pause. I thought, ‘Wow, “Christ-like.” That’s a big statement to make. Can we deliver on that? Can we actually provide Christ-like care?’” she said. But when she read on about the core values of the Felician Sisters, they really resonated with her.

“So I said yes,” she said. And she didn’t regret it.

“When I got to Angela Hospice, and I was in the Care Center initially and working with the team, I saw examples of Christ-like care happening every day,” she said. “Our team delivers on that Christ-like care every day.”

In 2017, Marti had the opportunity to travel to Rome and Assisi with other lay leaders from Felician organizations across the country for a pilgrimage, learning about Saint Clare, Saint Francis, and Blessed Mother Angela Truszkowska, foundress of the Felician Sisters.

“It was truly transformative for me,” Marti said. “Clare, Francis, the Felician Sisters, Mary Angela, and the Felician spirituality have really provided the foundation for the leadership that I feel that I will need to provide for Angela Hospice going forward.”

VISION FOR THE FUTURE

Inspired by the mission, and the legacy Angela Hospice has created over the past 35 years, Marti is looking forward to collaboration with Angela Hospice team members and continuing to nurture its positive influence in the community together, both for those at the end of life and for those who are grieving.

“The vision of one Felician Sister, Sister Mary Giovanni, who was determined that this community receive better care at end of life…has come to fruition in what Angela Hospice is today….” Marti said.

“Our success going forward, although it lies on the shoulders of the president and CEO, it’s our whole community working together, our Angela Hospice community of course, and then our partners in the community…. It’s so important that we all continue to focus on the need for quality end-of-life care, and support, and education in our community, and that’s really going to require all of us working together.”





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