NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Northwell Health CEO Michael Dowling has been one of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s most trusted advisors throughout the pandemic, but long before that, he was growing up in poverty in Ireland.
“We had no electricity, we had no bathrooms, we had no heat,” Dowling told WCBS 880.
Dowling, who is the head of the region’s largest health care provider and private employer, has seen his life change dramatically over the years and is now publishing a book about his life called “After the Roof Caved In: An Immigrant’s Journey from Ireland to America.”
The memoir chronicles his life growing up in the village of Knockaderry in rural Ireland to becoming the head of Northwell Health and helping lead New York State through a pandemic.
In this week’s In Depth Podcast, our Peter Haskell spoke with Dowling, who said his childhood was very simple, but that he always had big dreams.
“As a kid, growing up, I used to milk cows for the local farmers and help out with the pigs and the cattle and everything. My father was a laborer, who unfortunately was a very hard worker who became crippled with arthritis at a very young age and could not walk again. My mother was deaf – and I was the oldest of five,” he said. “We always dreamed about going to college, we had no money of course and so, we had to figure out how to get that done.”
Dowling notes his family is still in Ireland and he was the only one to immigrate to the United States, but before heading to the U.S., he went to London at the age of 16 to work in steel factories – where he raised money for his family in Knockaderry and for a college education.
After several years, Dowling was able to attend University College Cork in Ireland, where he earned his undergraduate degree and then, traveled to New York to complete his master’s degree at Fordham University.
His big break, however, would come when he was hired by Gov.
Mario Cuomo. He served for seven years as the state director of Health, Education and Human Services and deputy secretary to the governor.
Dowling says being hired by the former Gov. Cuomo changed his life forever.
“He was one of the more unique – one of the people that, in many ways, changed the projection of my career,” Dowling said.
After working with the former governor, Dowling joined Northwell Health in 1995. He would later become the health care provider’s president and CEO in January 2002.
He is now a close ally of the current Gov. Cuomo and worked closely with the governor in helping the state overcome the coronavirus pandemic.
Dowling even wrote another book about leading the state through the crisis called, “Leading Through a Pandemic: The Inside Story of Humanity, Innovation, and Lessons Learned During the COVID-19 Crisis.”
In his interview with WCBS 880, he talked about the pandemic again, and said the state could never have been prepared for what was to come.
“We were not as prepared as a country and most organizations were not prepared as well as they should have, to deal with a crisis like this,” he said.
To hear more about Michael Dowling’s immigration story and his thoughts on the coronavirus pandemic, listen to this week’s In Depth Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.