Augusta keynote speaker for association conferences and healthcare events.
Chris Sund is a keynote speaker, Maxwell Leadership Certified Coach, and sitting executive who leads national healthcare staffing organizations. He speaks on workforce motivation, leadership, retention, and human potential for Maine associations, state agencies, hospitals, long-term care providers, and employers across the Kennebec Valley.
Response within one business day.
Your caregivers are aging at the same rate as the people they care for.
Maine has the oldest median age of any state in the country, now above forty five. That fact usually gets discussed as a demand problem, meaning more patients, more residents, more home care hours. In Augusta it is also a supply problem, and the two arrive together.
Look at what this city actually runs on. State government supplies close to four out of every ten jobs in the region, and a large share of that is the Department of Health and Human Services administering care for an aging population. MaineGeneral Health employs somewhere in the range of four thousand to forty five hundred people across the Kennebec Valley. The VA Maine Healthcare System at Togus, just outside town, traces back to 1866 as the first National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, which means Augusta has been in the business of caring for aging veterans for more than a century and a half. Riverview Psychiatric Center sits here too.
So the three pillars of the local economy are all, in one form or another, care for people who are getting older. And the workforce doing that caring is drawn from the oldest labor pool in America. Statewide there are only around forty two available workers for every hundred open positions, and something close to half of Maine’s hospital nurses are already forty five or older, which means the retirement wave is not a forecast, it is a schedule.
That changes what a retention conversation should be about. When you cannot out-recruit the demographics, the leverage moves to two places. Keeping experienced people engaged long enough that they choose to stay past the year they could have left, and making sure the knowledge in their heads reaches the people coming up behind them before it walks out the door. Both are supervisor level work, and both are what the session is built around.
Chris runs national healthcare staffing organizations and has keynoted state association conferences in eleven states, including LeadingAge Illinois and health care associations in Iowa, Montana, South Dakota, and Colorado.
Operator, Not Consultant
President and COO of national healthcare staffing organizations, still making the hiring and retention calls he speaks about.
Long-Term Care Audiences
Keynotes delivered for LeadingAge Illinois and state health care associations representing skilled nursing and assisted living.
Multi-Generational Teams
Material built for rooms where a twenty three year old aide and a fifty eight year old charge nurse both need to leave with something.
Groups Chris speaks for.
Augusta holds Maine’s statewide healthcare associations, which makes it the natural place for a workforce keynote to land in front of the people who run the state’s hospitals and care facilities.
- Maine Hospital Association, headquartered on Fuller Road in Augusta and established in 1937, representing 32 community-governed hospitals along with home health agencies, skilled nursing and nursing facilities, residential care, and physician practices, and running educational programs through the year
- Maine Health Care Association, based in Augusta and established in 1954, the largest advocacy organization for facility-based long-term care in Maine, representing roughly 200 nursing homes and assisted living and residential care facilities
- MaineGeneral Health, the Kennebec Valley’s health system, operating the Alfond Center for Health along with clinics and care facilities across the region
- VA Maine Healthcare System at Togus, one of the largest federal employers in the state, with a campus history reaching back to 1866
- Maine Medical Association, in neighboring Manchester, founded in 1853 with over four thousand active members
- State agencies concentrated in Augusta including Health and Human Services, Transportation, Education, Environmental Protection, and Labor, for in-service and leadership development days
- Kennebec Valley employers, school districts, chambers, and SHRM chapters
Augusta employers facing the same demographics.
Healthcare is where Chris operates, but the oldest workforce in the country belongs to every employer in Maine.
State Government
Agencies where a generation of institutional knowledge is approaching retirement at once, and where leadership development happens through in-service days rather than outside conferences.
Education
School districts across the Kennebec Valley recruiting from the same shrinking pool, where one vacancy can end a program.
Manufacturing and Utilities
Regional employers where skilled trades are held by long-tenured people and the apprenticeship pipeline is the whole strategy.
Nonprofits and Social Services
Organizations serving an aging state on flat budgets, competing for staff against everyone else on this list.
Augusta and Kennebec Valley venues.
- Augusta hotel and conference space for statewide association annual meetings and member education days
- The State House and surrounding state office buildings for agency in-service and leadership sessions
- MaineGeneral and the Alfond Center for Health campuses for staff and leadership days
- Togus and the VA campus just outside the city
- Waterville, Gardiner, Hallowell, and the Kennebec Valley communities
- Portland and Bangor for Maine organizations that rotate their annual meeting location
Augusta events Chris speaks at.
Association Conferences
Statewide association annual meetings and general sessions, the format Chris works in most often and the one Augusta hosts most.
Long-Term and Senior Care
Skilled nursing, assisted living, and residential care conferences and in-service days, the core of Maine’s care economy.
Hospital and Health System Events
Leadership days, nurse recognition events, and system-wide meetings.
Nurse Leadership
Charge nurse and nurse manager development for the layer that decides whether experienced staff stay.
HR and SHRM Chapter Events
Human resources conferences and chapter meetings on hiring and retention in the tightest labor market in the country.
Rural and Critical Access Healthcare
Leadership days for the community hospitals serving Maine’s rural counties.
Keynote topics for your Augusta event.
Every session is customized for the audience, the format, and what you are actually trying to change.
See what conference organizers and HR leaders have said after booking Chris.
Booking a keynote speaker in Augusta
Has Chris spoken in Maine before?
Does Chris travel to Augusta?
Half our staff are near retirement. Does the session speak to older workers?
Our real problem is that there is nobody to hire. Does a keynote help with that?
Can the session address knowledge transfer specifically?
What does an Augusta keynote cost?
Can Chris speak virtually to a Maine audience?
Bring Chris to your Augusta event.
Send your date, location, and audience. You will get availability and a quote back within one business day.
info@chrissund.com · 402-212-5771 · Maine speaking · All locations