Margaret Weller-Stargell is a pro.

Over the phone on a recent balmy October morning, she spoke with the poise of a seasoned executive and the warmth of a natural counselor – her words measured, deliberate and carrying an easy curiosity.

These qualities are a few of the reasons why she’s been named this year’s recipient of the Health Care Heroes Lifetime Achievement Award. The Coastal Horizons Center president and CEO is scheduled to accept the honor Nov. 12 during the awards ceremony at UNCW’s Burney Center.

Weller-Stargell was born and raised in the Port City, where she attended Alderman Elementary and Hoggard High School.

“I had a beautiful childhood growing up in Wilmington,” Weller-Stargell said. “I had wonderful parents who wanted the very best for their twins.”

Her twin is Frances Weller, longtime TV news anchor at local NBC affiliate WECT, who graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before returning home to work for the very same local station she and her sister had watched growing up together.

“It was awesome to grow up with a twin because there was a bond there unlike any other,” Weller-Stargell said.

The Weller household taught kindness, understanding and forgiveness, she said – all lessons that would serve the nascent healthcare trailblazer well as she studied at N.C. State University in the early ’80s.

“My degree was in sociology, and I always knew that I wanted to be in the field of helping people have better, improved lives,” said Weller-Stargell.

Her first thought after graduation was to become a probation officer. “I wanted to help individuals who had gotten into trouble,” she said, “and work with them on moving in a different path – a better direction.”

But she suspended that idea when a close family friend who worked in the probation system spoke with her and recommended she consider other human service careers.

She feels gratitude for a definitive turning point in her life.

“The important thing is that we all have a purpose,” Weller-Stargell said, “and there are positions that might seem appealing to us in the moment but might not be the best choice for us in the long run.”

For Weller-Stargell, the better choice was a career in behavioral health. In 1985, she joined Coastal Horizons as a counselor, working directly with patients and families.

Day in and day out over the next four decades, Weller-Stargell witnessed firsthand the meteoric rise of the Wilmington-based organization. Founded in 1970, Coastal Horizons has grown into a nationally accredited nonprofit corporation offering a broad range of evidence-based substance use, mental health, crisis intervention, justice and wellness services. Today, it serves individuals and families in need across more than half of North Carolina’s 100 counties.

“No one who is dealing with substance use or mental health issues chooses to do so,” she said, as if the lessons from her first day on the job in 1985 are as fresh today as they were four decades ago. “Substance use addiction is an illness like any other chronic health issue. You have to treat it just as you would treat someone with diabetes or heart disease.”

Promoted to executive director of Coastal Horizons in 1995, Weller-Stargell relied on these core beliefs to rapidly advance the organization – all while cultivating the early years of her marriage to Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Stargell, whom she had married at a Wilmington church in 1993.

Not long after, illness struck the Pittsburgh Pirates power hitter, requiring weekly kidney dialysis treatments beginning in 1996. Five years later, in 2001, Willie Stargell died as the result of an acute stroke, compounded by chronic kidney disease, at what was then New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

In his honor, Weller-Stargell established the Willie Stargell Foundation to raise funds for kidney disease research, patient care and treatment. The loss was a watershed moment that profoundly reinforced her commitment to expanding access to healthcare of all kinds – including behavioral health – throughout the region and state. It was as if fate had uniquely prepared her for this collision of personal grief and professional purpose, guiding her as she eventually stepped into the organization’s pinnacle role as president and CEO.

“I wanted to carry the organization’s vision forward,” said Weller-Stargell, referencing the early work of the Cape Fear Substance Abuse Center, which would later become Coastal Horizons. “By doing that, we ensure we’re always available for anyone who is in need of our services.”

And exactly what that moment should look like is something only someone with the poise of a seasoned executive and warmth of a natural counselor would know.

“I always say, if someone walks through our doors, we want to be able to help them and get them connected to the services they need right away,” she said. “And I’m incredibly proud that we’ve grown and expanded those services to create better accessibility throughout our communities.”