James “Jim” Moran, MD, formerly of Burlington, died on Father’s Day in Truckee, California, one month after a diagnosis of metastatic cancer. Dr. Moran’s life was defined by his pioneering spirit, intellectual curiosity, and a remarkable willingness to eschew expectation and carve his own path.
Dr. Moran was born in California in 1943 and lived there until 1955, when his family moved to Alaska. He graduated from Lathrop/Fairbanks High School in 1961 and began his college career at the University of Alaska. After a less-than-stellar year, he left college and spent the next several years working as an electrician. In 1964, he met and married Joeann Lee, his wife and lifelong partner, at the Tic Toc Drive-in in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Throughout the late 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, Dr. Moran pursued a wide range of business ventures across Alaska. His work included a commercial laundry, a laundromat, commercial and residential property management, Dairy Queens, airplane sales and rental, and airplane flight instruction.
While he did not follow a conventional trajectory, Dr. Moran highly valued education. In 1980, he resumed his education at the University of Alaska and Portland State University, graduating in 1983 with a Bachelor of Science degree in biological sciences. He attended the University of Washington, School of Medicine, completing his first year at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and his final years at the University of Washington in Seattle. He earned his M.D. in 1986, followed by an internal medicine residency in the University of Michigan system and a three-year cardiology fellowship at Wayne State University in Detroit. During the last five years of his training, he also worked in emergency rooms throughout Michigan.
Jim Moran began his career as a cardiologist in 1992 at Memorial Hospital of Burlington — at the age of 50. He found great meaning in his work as a physician and thoroughly enjoyed his interactions with his patients.
Dr. Moran’s interests outside of medicine and family were extensive and varied. He enjoyed planes, wine, guns, whiskey, good engineering, and Chopin (both the composer and the vodka). He will be remembered for his intelligence, independence and his ability to fix nearly anything. Jim Moran is survived by three children, Julie Adams Moran, Jill Moran Baxter and Jeff Moran; and five grandsons.
Jim abhorred funerals (and obituaries). In lieu of flowers, please enjoy an excellent bottle of red, tinker with something mechanical, listen to Grieg, Sousa or Dire Straits, or toast your loved ones with a vodka gimlet