Michael F. Maher, headmaster of Oak Hall School in Gainesville, Fla., has been selected Marist School headmaster effective July 1.

With Father James L. Hartnett, SM, president of Marist School, and Father Kevin Duggan, SM, campus minister, he will make up the school’s leadership team. He will be the first lay person in the school’s 91-year history to serve as headmaster.

Maher, 37, holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s degree in educational administration from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He taught at St. Vincent Palloti School in Laurel, Md., before becoming dean of students at Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington.

He then held administrative positions at Ransom Everglades School in Miami. He became headmaster at Oak Hall School in 1986.

A sports enthusiast, Maher played competitive baseball in high school and college and has coached his son in youth leagues since the boy was eight. He was assistant baseball coach at CUA and varsity baseball coach at Archbishop Carroll and Ransom Everglades schools.

“The role of the headmaster in an independent Catholic school is both unique and critical,” Maher said. He hopes to “model a Christian lifestyle that conveys a strong sense of academic and personal ambition and a love and concern for the welfare of others.”

“The short time I was on the Marist campus,” he said in a telephone interview, “I was struck by the commitment to educational excellence and Christian community that pervades the campus. I am excited about being a part of that spirit, and contributing to it.”

Maher will visit Atlanta in April and at that time search for a house for his family and a school for his seven-year-old daughter, Katie. Matthew, 12, will enroll at Marist in the fall. Lynn Maher, his wife, is a doctoral candidate at the University of Florida.

Marist School has been under the leadership of an administrative team since the resignation of Brother Paul Leonarczyk, SM, in 1992.