Succession: MSC ushers in new leadership 

CLEVELAND – Darrel Lowery will retire from Medical Service Company in July, and Josh Marx and Dana McLaughlin will step in to lead the company, part of a succession plan that has been more than a decade in the making. 

Josh Marx, managing director of sleep and vice president of business development, will become CEO, and Dana McLaughlin, CFO, will become president. 

“Succession planning is a process, not an event,” said Joel Marx, chairman of MSC’s board of directors. “Ours has been developed over a period of decades and continues as an ongoing exercise. We are so pleased that Josh’s accomplishments and development have led him to this new stage in his career. Josh, along with Dana, will lead the organization through challenge, change, opportunity and success.” 

Lowery was MSC’s vice president of operations from 2007-10 and president from 2010-15, and has been president and CEO since 2015. 

Growing through the storm 

When Lowery joined MSC, the company had three locations and about 100 employees. He helped it grow to more than 38 locations throughout the United States and about 400 employees, all with Medicare’s competitive bidding program churning in the background. 

“That’s a lot to be proud of,” he said. “We know a lot of our fellow providers got consolidated, and we weathered the storm and came out a much stronger and growing organization.” 

Passing the baton 

Lowery is confident he’s leaving the company in good hands, having closely mentored Marx and McLaughlin over the years. 

“Josh is very focused on the strategic growth of the company, including how to grow the company externally through acquisitions,” he said. “Dana, with her operations background and financial acumen, is in charge of the day-to-day. It’s a very good tag-team.” 

Transforming the business 

Marx says it gives him “unexplainable pride” to lead a company that his grandparents, Merle and Jean Marx, started in 1950 and that his father, Joel Marx, led for decades. MSC has always been part of his life, but he “jumped back in” in 2012, developing relationships in different segments of health care along the way. 

“These are the assets that will allow me to set the right strategy for the company,” he said. “For it to prosper through several more generations, we have to transform the business to meet the changing needs of our customers.” 

That means getting first to market, automating simple repetitive tasks, never being complacent and, above all, taking care of people, Marx says. 

“We believe there’s no one in the country that manages a hospital-to-home transition better than MSC,” he said. “Any patient that is not served by us is underserved.” 

Creating opportunities 

McLaughlin says a big focus of hers will be paying forward a leadership style that prioritizes and advances employees. 

“This is my 27th year in the industry,” she said. “MSC is not literally my family, but it is my family. Joel took me under his wing and let me work side by side with him on acquisitions, so we could take care of more patients and serve more communities. I’m someone who leads with empathy and creating opportunities for people makes me happy in life. We hold people accountable, but we know happy people produce.”