Marnix Heersink is an eye surgeon by training, but an entrepreneur at heart. It started early. After moving with his family from his native Netherlands to Canada, at the age of 10 he worked a paper route, earning around five dollars a week delivering the local paper The Hamilton Spectator. Later, in medical school, he found time to purchase, then renovate a house, rent it, and finally sell it at a profit. Throughout his life, Heersink has balanced this competitive, entrepreneurial drive with a desire to improve the lives of people.
Heersink played basketball for his high school and played center for the University of Western Ontario. He was invited to play for Canada in the 1972 Olympics and was inducted into the University of Western Ontario Sports Hall of Fame as well as the Burlington Sports Hall of Fame. “He was the best to ever play at Western,” said friend Col. Dr. Ron Foxcroft, longtime international referee and the inventor of the famous Fox Whistle. “He could have played in the NBA.”
But Heersink already had his sights set on medicine. When he was a boy of about sixteen, Heersink remembers his father sitting down with him to discover a career path. At that time, the young Heersink was unsure what he wanted to do, but soon, it became clear to his father that Heersink wanted a career focused on helping people. He credits that realization as the beginning of his interest in medicine.
After earning his bachelor’s (magna cum laude) and medical degrees at the University of Western Ontario in Canada and following a surgical internship in Montreal, Heersink completed an ophthalmology residency and an anterior segment surgery fellowship, both in Philadelphia, where he met his wife, Mary. In 1978, the Heersinks moved to Dothan, Alabama. “We had in our possession a used car, some clothes, and a lot of love and hope. And great educations,” he said in an interview.
Early on, Heersink remembers taking a risk and buying a 10,000 square foot office building in Dothan for his practice. Overwhelmed by the purchase, he suggested to his wife that they should live in the building and have his office downstairs. That idea was a non-starter. But from those humble beginnings, he would go on to cofound Eye Center South — which in the decades since has grown to 12 locations across Alabama, Georgia and Florida — and then open Health Center South, a 140,000-square-foot, state-ofthe-art medical tower complex for doctors of all specialties in Dothan. Heersink is also an owner or agent of many other companies, including real estate holdings and manufacturing entities in the United States and abroad.
He has taught and lectured internationally, participated in research studies, and is a fellow and member of multiple professional organizations including the American Academy of Ophthalmology, International College of Surgeons, American College of Surgeons, American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery and The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. Heersink is certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology and the American Board of Eye Surgery.
Committed philanthropists, the Heersinks have funded numerous scholarships and fellowships at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Troy Business School, and Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. They established the Wiregrass Pathway to Optometry scholarship. Heersink also founded the Eye Education Foundation, an educational nonprofit for eye care professionals, in 1984. Finally, Heersink has served or serves on numerous nonprofit boards. His commitment to philanthropic gift giving stems from and is inspired by a Native American saying: “We have all been warmed by fires that we did not light.”
Recently, the family made transformative gifts to two universities: the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which named its medical school the Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine, and McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, which resulted in the creation of the Marnix E. Heersink School of Biomedical Innovation and Entrepreneurship. By supporting the two young universities, Heersink hopes to encourage entrepreneurial innovation and collaboration across national borders.
He holds an honorary doctorate from McMaster University.
Heersink and Mary live in Dothan, Alabama, and have six children and 11 grandchildren.
