Meaning, Purpose, and Vision

Although Bryan Mroz graduated from college with a degree in business, he knew he needed a role where he would be helping people—something with meaning and purpose. “The role we call a mental health worker today was known as a psych nursing tech,” he shares. “That’s how I started my career in mental health. I worked at Taylor Manor—the site of Sheppard Pratt’s old Ellicott City hospital. I loved working directly with patients, but I knew I wanted to do more. I would watch the nurses and think to myself, ‘I want to do that.’ So, I went back to school to become a nurse.”

Throughout his career, Mroz stayed focused on mental health and found a deep passion for working with adolescents. And as he found himself in new roles, he discovered he had a knack for operations. “My goal was never to be an operations person, but I’ve always wanted to make the work more streamlined and stable for my teams. I want to take care of the people around me,” says Mroz.

That desire to take care of the people around him led him to partner with Sheppard Pratt. During one of Mroz’s leadership roles with the Maryland Department of Health, he led an initiative to address adolescent overstays—when teens get “stuck” in emergency departments waiting for a psychiatric bed or a placement in the community. “Sheppard Pratt was the only organization to step forward and say, ‘We’ll help address this.’ They knew this was a crisis, and were ready and willing to make it work, no matter what it took,” he reminisces.

When a role leading hospital operations was available at Sheppard Pratt, Mroz jumped at the opportunity. This wasn’t his first time working at Sheppard Pratt—he’d previously served as the unit manager for the Adolescent Male Unit and as a float nurse—so it felt like coming home. 

“I’m excited to spend time focusing on our connection with the community,” he shares. “Here at Sheppard Pratt, we’re so connected across the whole continuum of care. Whether it’s before someone comes to the hospital or after they leave, we’re serving everyone we can and keeping them healthy.”