Michigan Cares

To look at Nick and Chris Brandon’s 6'3" tall, strapping frames today, you would never imagine that 27 years ago they were premature babies fighting to stay alive.

Born with a rare blood disorder, the twins were treated at the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital’s Holden Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which pulled them through their life-threatening illness. For parents Dave and Jan Brandon, the experience struck a deep chord. Dave, only 28 years old at the time, remembers feeling a strong instinct to find a way to give back to the hospital, some day. This happened half his lifetime ago, but that instinct has only grown stronger.

In 2006, Dave Brandon, now CEO and Chairman of Domino’s Pizza, and his wife Jan made a gift of $4 million to the University, of which $2 million will go towards the construction of the neonatal intensive care unit (which will be named the Nick and Chris Brandon NICU in recognition of the gift) in the new 1.1 million-square-foot C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital currently under construction.

Getting Perspective
The Brandons’ experience has made them more aware of how precious every moment is. The twins turned 27 this year—27 years of special moments collected over time. The Brandons’ rare perspective comes across in Dave’s throwaway comment, “You can have many happy endings before you’re 27, you know.” And that is when you get a glimpse of their sharp insight. Every day, every moment of a healthy life lived is a happy ending in itself. One happy ending the Brandons recount with pride is that Chris and Nick were both co-captains of their high-school basketball team. Jan remembers, “When other parents were obsessing about whether their kid was scoring the most points, we were just thinking ‘We have two healthy boys.’” When they thought their own boys were getting a little too concerned about “who was scoring the most points,” Dave decided it was an appropriate time to “reconnect them with where their life began.” Asking for two hours of their time, but not telling them where he was taking them, the twins, led by Dave, found themselves at the Mott NICU, staring through its large windows at the tiny babies in incubators inside. Suddenly everything else paled in comparison. “That was perspective,” says Jan.

Back Where It Began
Dave recalls how, seeing the boys and their father, a Mott NICU nurse came over to them, smiling broadly. Dave had barely started to explain how Chris and Nick were there 18 years ago, in one of those incubators, when she looked at the boys and said, “Are you guys Brandon Boy A and Brandon Boy B?”

“I was just dumbfounded that a nurse could care so much that she would remember them after 18 years,” says Dave. He explained they had not named the boys for the first few weeks and their incubators were simply labeled Brandon Boy A and Brandon Boy B. As the same nurse who was on duty when they were admitted 18 years earlier hugged the boys, she said, eyes misting over, “They never come back as adults…thank you for bringing them back.” Dave muses that this is a mixed blessing: “The fact that they never come back is good because that means they are healthy and the nurses and doctors were successful. The sad part is that they never get to see evidence of the amazing work they do every day.” This time, however, there were two pieces of undeniable evidence. Each of them 6'3" tall.