The Miami Herald, Inc.; a Knight Ridder publication. One Herald Plaza, Miami, FL 33132-1693 - Friday, October 25, 1996 Edition: Final Section: Local Page: 1B Word Count: 504
Stephen Smith, Herald Health Writer

Take another look.

Today, they share a common ethos: life. Buoyed by medical advances and rejuvenated attitudes about chronic illnesses, organizations that used to focus on mortality now embrace a more vibrant mandate.

So it only makes sense that Marc Lichtman, after 21 years immersed in running Miami Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged, should find himself at the helm of Health Crisis Network, South Florida's biggest provider of AIDS counseling and services.

At Health Crisis Network and the Jewish Home, "they are living longer, treatments are improving, their quality of life needs to change," said Lichtman, 49, who becomes chief executive officer at Health Crisis a week from today.

It has been an agency bereft of a permanent leader since July, when veteran CEO Cathy Lynch quit, after nurturing the group from a trailer outpost to a full-fledged service agency with a $3 million annual budget and roughly 100 full- and part-time workers. At the time of her resignation, Lynch said she was leaving in pursuit of new challenges.

Now, just like the AIDS epidemic, Health Crisis Network finds itself at a crossroads, poised to greet a future in which AIDS will likely be viewed less as a death sentence and more as a long-term illness.

That means changing the way the agency does business. It means helping people whose health has been restored to also regain their independence. And it means stretching farther and deeper into the community.

"Why should people in South Dade or people on South Beach have to go all the way to 5050 Biscayne?" said Health Crisis board President Damian Pardo, referring to the headquarters address.

Thus, Lichtman wants to open satellite offices across Dade to teach people how to avoid catching the disease and to help them if they do.

"We need to have a greater presence," Lichtman said. "If you live in South Florida and don't recognize the issues that AIDS and HIV present, you're really blind and living under a rock."

Dade accounts for about one of every three AIDS cases in Florida, the state with the third-highest number of people stricken with the disease.

Lichtman comes to Health Crisis Network two years after leaving Miami Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged, where he was CEO for eight years. He left that post when the board that runs the sprawling retirement home in Little Haiti rejected his suggestion that services be parceled out across South Florida, with satellites in South Dade and North Broward.

More recently, Lichtman has worked at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach and as a consultant. "We've been on the cutting edge and we don't want to lose that," Pardo said. "In Marc we thought, here's someone who has that passion, who has that commitment. It was a great match."

CAPTION: photo: Marc LICHTMAN

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