Former CEO Publishes New Book, Launches Podcast
Maryann Roefaro, who led Hematology-Oncology Associates of CNY for 23 years, remains busy in retirement
By Mary Beth Roach
Although Maryann Roefaro retired as CEO of Hematology-Oncology Associates of CNY in February 2025, one may wonder if the 66-year-old even knows the meaning of the word “retire.”
Since leaving her post at HOA, a position she served for more than 20 years, she has published a book and started a podcast.
“I can’t stay still,” she said, during an interview.
Anyone who knows her knows how true that statement is.
Roefaro said she was out for a run one morning when the idea for her latest book, her fourth, “The Transitions of Hope,” came to her. She said she actually heard the name of the book and the tagline — “Using the Power of the Mind to Replace Fear with Love to Navigate Life’s Challenges.”
“We all have that voice within us that kind of leads us to do something and in life; if you pay attention and you listen to it, it often guides you,” she said.
She admitted that when she began to write, she wasn’t sure what was going to be in every chapter, “but as I start writing, it just kind of flows,” she said.
She had begun writing the book prior to her retirement, but from February to late summer of 2025, she said she could devote more time to it.
The book, she explained, pulls from some of her life’s most significant experiences, including the deaths of her beloved mother and father, her ex-husband’s battle against cancer (which he lost in February 2024), her years in healthcare and her work as a reiki practitioner, a hypnotherapist and a spiritual guide.
She describes in the book, for example, a crucial lesson that she learned through the relationships she developed with the thousands of HOA patients she saw during her 23 years as CEO. Some of them were successful in their fight against cancer; some didn’t survive. As she writes, “Those who died taught me more about living than I could have imagined. I always believed walking with someone in their end-of-life journey was one of the greatest privileges we could witness.”
To illustrate some of the iterations of hope that people can have, she tells of the final months and days of her ex-husband’s battle with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and the roller coaster that she and Dale, her former husband, and their two daughters experienced.
“Dale’s journey was an incredible exemplification of the journey of hope. And how the slope of hope changes,” she said. First, they all had hoped he could beat the cancer or at least be in remission. As she said, “the elevation of hope is very high.” And while those hopes were eventually dashed, Roefaro said she and Dale talked and they “became the best of friends for the second time.”
Eventually, she writes, they were at the “end of the earthly road” and Dale had given his all in this battle and their “slope of hope” changed.
“The goal is completely different,” she said, “It’s no longer for a cure. Now what you hope for is a peaceful transition and an everlasting eternity of love and happiness and all that awaits for us on the other side.”
Stories like these — of hope, resilience and encouragement — are woven throughout the book. Caregivers and those looking for inspirational reading might find this book a great resource.
Ironically, Roefaro never imagined she’d be an author. Although she wrote stories to read to some of her friends when she was growing up in Utica, she said that she was a “math and science girl” and that English was not one of her favorite subjects. In her late 20s, she told how she visited a medium who told her that in addition to having leadership positions, she’d write books. She was sure the medium had her confused with someone else.
Fast forward a few decades and that CEO has now authored four books. Her earlier three are “A Human’s Purpose by Millie the Dog;” “Snippets from the Inside-Out by Millie the Dog;” and “Building the Team from the Inside Out: A Multidimensional View of Leadership.”
“Somehow this gift developed as I got older,” she said. “I really have tried pay to attention to whatever gifts I have, use them to that my best and my potential, but always in a way to try to make something better. You know, leave it better than how you found it.”
In the midst of writing “The Transitions of Hope,” Roefaro came up with the idea to begin a podcast.
“I thought to myself, ‘OK, you’re retired now. You’ve got a lot of energy. You’ve got a lot of things to say. What are you going to do? You’re just going to write this book.’ And then I thought, ‘No, you know what? Maybe a podcast to go with it would be a really good thing.’ So that’s when I found my friends at Click Stream.”
Click Stream Studios is a digital content marketing company, which has recently announced its move to the former Spaghetti Warehouse restaurant in Syracuse.
She wants the podcasts — titled “Transitions of Hope — like her books, to underscore her one message which she stated on one of her early podcasts, make “the world a better place, one person at time, from the inside out. I really want that message to be embedded in the hearts of people.”
The “Transitions of Hope” podcasts are available on most platforms that house podcasts, such as Spotify, Apple, Amazon, iHeartRadio and through her YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/@transitionsofhope
TOP IMAGE: Maryann Roefaro at Click Stream Studios in Syracuse holds the four books she has already published. Photo courtesy of Amanda Miller, Click Stream Studios.