When they gave the president of their institution, Robert Brandow, their annual Distinguished Service Award, the Eastern Maine Medical Center trustees implicitly honored and acknowledged 24 years of service to a hospital complex that Brandow, as much as any other individual, helped to build.

At his retirement later this year, Mr. Brandow’s accomplishments will be cited. But what may not be apparent in the collective achievements of nearly a quarter century at EMMC is the leadership he brought to the institution, his ability to anticipate the needs of the community, and his understanding of the people who work at EMMC, who use its services, and who support it financially.

Eastern Maine Medical Center is a remarkably complete facility for an area of small population and limited wealth. It exists as it does today because of its administration, led by Brandow, and the people who served on its board of trustees. They have collaborated on ideas that eventually were given structure, with equipment and trained professionals.

Oncology, cardiac surgery, and now pediatrics, all began as institutional concepts responding to a need in the eastern Maine community. Each was offered to the public for its support, and in each case the people of the region believed so deeply in the value of improving EMMC that they sacrificed, personally and financially, to make the hospital stronger.

Communities never have enough good ideas. Even rarer are people such as Brandow, who have the organizational skills, the commitment and the persistence to help give substance to those visions.