Officials at Triad Corporation, which owns and operates many hospitals including Mountain View, asked Karen if she would be interested in becoming the chief operation officer for the Las Cruces facility. “They thought I would be a good fit in the community and at the hospital,” said Karen. “I asked, ‘Where is it?’ and they said Las Cruces, New Mexico. I then asked ‘Where is Las Cruces, New Mexico?’”
Karen, who had lived almost all of her life in Indiana, was asked to make a presentation on customer service at Triad’s hospital in Carlsbad late last spring. She decided to stay in New Mexico an extra day, drive to Las Cruces and have a look-see. “I thought, if there is a ‘wow’ feeling when I see it, then I would pursue it,” she said. “It’s just a beautiful, bright, clean community and when I first saw the hospital, I said ‘a-ha.’”
Karen’s husband, Brad, a member of the Air National Guard, was stationed in Iraq at the time and Triad gave Karen some extra time to ponder the move so her husband could return, visit Las Cruces and offer his opinion. “He has always been very supportive of my career,” she said. “We came out together and he said, ‘Let’s go for it.’ We had a special feeling about it. It is a new adventure in a new community.”
Karen was formally announced as Mountain View’s new CEO on June 30, and began her job on July 10. She, however, had to come to Las Cruces alone. Brad, who is on the verge of retiring as a firefighter in their hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and is still on active duty with the Air National Guard, will join her in Las Cruces this fall. The two had only five weeks together between his return from Iraq and her leaving for Las Cruces. “When he was in Iraq, I sent him a package every week,” said Karen. “Now, he is sending me cards every week. He said, ‘Well, you did it for me.’”
Born and raised in Fort Wayne, Karen and Brad have known each other since she was 14. “I’ve been happily married to my best friend for almost 27 years,” she said. The couple, which has a 25-year-old son, Bradley, in law school at IU-Indianapolis, had a 40-acre place near Fort Wayne. There was a pond, many trees and 10 acres of farmland. Karen said leaving their longtime home was easier than she thought. “You come to a point in your life when you’re ready for a change,” she said. “We worked so hard. It would take us four hours just to mow the grass, and that’s with both of us mowing. And the winters in Indiana are brutal and last forever. It was a beautiful time in our life there, but now it’s neat for us to move on to something different. At this time in our life together, we’re not afraid of change. Everything has fallen into place, so I know this is supposed to be.”
Karen and Brad sold their place in Indiana in only 10 days and currently are looking for a new home in Las Cruces. They are considering several neighborhoods. “The Realtor showed my husband some places when I was in meetings here,” Karen said. “We probably would like something with a view, maybe an acre or so, and we would need some space for a wood shop so my husband can do the things he likes to do. We’ll have a lot of family visiting from Fort Wayne, so we’ll need room for them.” While Karen enjoys walking or hiking to relax and unwind from a day at work, Brad prefers riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. They are looking forward to water skiing at Elephant Butte Lake and testing the slopes at New Mexico’s various snow skiing venues this winter.
As enthusiastic as Karen is about beginning a new adventure with her husband in Las Cruces, she’s equally excited about her new job. She comes to Mountain View from Dupont Hospital in Fort Wayne, where she had been CEO and Chief Nursing Officer for six years. Before that, she held management positions at two other hospitals in the city of 350,000 people – Director of Patient Care Services at the Rehabilitation Hospital of Fort Wayne and Clinical Manager at Lutheran Hospital of Indiana. She began her career in medicine as a nurse and her specialty, she says, is customer service. “I am there just to serve,” she said. “My goal is to provide great care and do it in a manner that exceeds the expectations of our patients. That’s so rewarding.”
Karen has spent much of her initial time at Mountain View roaming the facility, talking with patients and getting to know the staff. She is a down-to-earth manager whose genuine, friendly nature helps explain why Triad Corporation asked her to lead customer service workshops for staff members at other hospitals. “I may be a CEO, but I’m still a nurse at heart,” she said. “I plan to get my nursing certification in New Mexico. It’s in my heart to take care of people. I just felt that I could better serve patients in the role of leadership. The bigger the challenge, the more I enjoy it.”
|
