Completing a healthcare career that spanned half a century and helped transform CentraState Healthcare System into a leading center of care for the residents of central New Jersey, CentraState Healthcare System President and CEO John T. Gribbin today announced his plan to retire in April, 2022.

“It has been my privilege to serve this community for more than twenty years and to have worked with board members, senior management, physicians and staff who have helped grow CentraState from a hospital to a comprehensive health system. CentraState is well positioned for the future. I felt the timing was right for the organization to transition to new leadership,” Gribbin stated.

Under Gribbin’s leadership over the past 21 years, CentraState has maintained a patient-centered focus on quality clinical outcomes, while simultaneously growing exponentially, adding new services and expanding access to care for Monmouth County residents. While retiring from his position as President and CEO, Gribbin will continue to work on special projects through the System’s partner, PIER Practice Solutions.

CentraState’s Board of Trustees is exploring options for his successor to assure a seamless leadership transition. CentraState’s current Board Chairman, John Cantalupo noted that Gribbin was successful in ensuring CentraState remained a reliable and trusted community resource during a period when so many hospitals around the state were facing financial pressures. “He redefined what it means to be a community hospital by never losing focus for the organization throughout his tenure,” said Cantalupo.

Past Board Chairman, John Eggert described Gribbin as a visionary who has long understood that a hospital’s role is more than treating illness. “He led the way in introducing a broad range of wellness services through the Star and Barry Tobias Health Awareness Center designed to maintain health and better manage chronic conditions through education, management techniques and coaching, that have helped strengthen the connection between CentraState and the community.”

Gribbin joined CentraState Healthcare System as President and CEO in 2000. During his tenure, he presided over the opening of the new three-story Donna O’Donnell, RN Medical Arts Building, and the construction of The Star and Barry Tobias Ambulatory campus, the largest construction project in CentraState’s history. In 2005 CentraState became a university-affiliated teaching hospital in conjunction with the Rutgers RWJ Medical School that graduates six new family medicine physicians each year.

A leading voice in healthcare policy, Gribbin was instrumental in successfully advocating for new cardiac regulations providing greater access to high quality cardiovascular care for patients throughout New Jersey. He also played a key role in partnering with the Visiting Nurse Association and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in developing the Freehold Family Health Center, a federally qualified health center serving the greater Freehold area that provides comprehensive primary care to underserved, disadvantaged, uninsured, and underinsured patients.

With a keen eye on environmental sustainability Gribbin launched a solar energy initiative at CentraState beginning in 2015 that was recently completed in 2021 with the addition of solar carports.  The solar initiative powers 70 percent of the hospital’s electric needs making CentraState the most solar powered hospital in New Jersey.

More recently, CentraState entered in to a unique model for health system co-ownership with Atlantic Health System, which provides CentraState with significant resources to support its longstanding community focus while advancing Atlantic Health’s mission to touch more lives in New Jersey through collaborations for high-quality, value-based care. Next month, CentraState will have transitioned to Epic, considered the gold standard among electronic health record systems which will improve patient safety and provide the convenience of having a single, digital health record that can easily follow the patient as they receive care at different locations.

When Covid-19 hit CentraState hard and early, Gribbin developed response teams and organizational changes to keep patients and employees safe. He was dedicated to providing vaccines to as many people as possible, including teachers, students and those in underserved communities.

Gribbin’s extensive career in healthcare spans more than 45 years. He is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives; member and past chairman of the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Hospital Association (NJHA); chairman of the Hospital Research and Education Trust of NJHA; past chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Monmouth-Ocean Hospital Service Corp; and past chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Central Jersey Blood Center.

Gribbin earned his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania and received his Master’s in Business Administration from Rider University.

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