Hastings keynote speaker for healthcare, manufacturing, campus, and association 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 Adams County employers, health care organizations, advanced manufacturing and processing operations, colleges and school districts, and regional association audiences across south-central Nebraska.
Response within one business day.
You inherited a reason to exist. Almost nobody on your payroll has ever heard it.
Hastings has something most organizations spend real money trying to manufacture, and it has been sitting here unused for over a century.
Mary Lanning Healthcare is the largest employer in Adams County, licensed for one hundred eighty three beds with a staff approaching a thousand, serving patients across central Nebraska. It exists for a specific reason. In 1910 a twenty one year old named Mary Lanning caught typhoid on the train home from college and died, in part because there was not much health care in Hastings to come home to. Her parents spent the following years touring hospitals in this country and in Europe, and then they built one here, along with a school of nursing, so that it would not happen to somebody else’s daughter.
That is the origin story of the biggest employer in the county. Ask around a shift and see how many people can tell it to you.
The pattern repeats across town. Hastings College offers more than sixty majors in a city of roughly twenty five thousand. Central Community College runs career and technical programs on ground that used to be a naval ammunition depot. Bryan College of Health Sciences operates a four year nursing program on the Mary Lanning campus, with general education through Hastings College and clinicals in local hospitals. Health care and social assistance is the largest employment sector here, manufacturing is close behind and carries a larger share of total wages than of total jobs, and the food processing and renewable fuels operations run alongside them.
What that adds up to is a town where the people you hire were very likely trained down the road, sometimes by someone who works for you. The story of why the work matters is available at every single stage of that pipeline, and it is told at almost none of them. New employees get the handbook, the badge, the parking rules, and the policies. What they usually do not get is a reason.
This matters more than it sounds. Leaders reach for engagement initiatives and surveys and events, and the whole time they are sitting on something no initiative can buy, which is a true and local and specific account of why this place was built and what happens in the community when the work is done badly. People will work hard for a paycheck. They will work differently when they know what they are part of.
Hastings is a clean example because the reason is documented and still visible. Most organizations have one too. Very few leaders have said it out loud in years.
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, making the same leadership calls he speaks about.
Purpose Without a Program
Material for leaders who already have a real reason to point at and have never used it.
Clinical, Plant, and Campus Rooms
Works for a hospital leadership day, a shift-based plant session, or a college and community gathering.
Groups Chris speaks for.
Hastings carries health care, manufacturing, and higher education in a city small enough that all three know each other well.
- Mary Lanning Healthcare and area clinics and senior care providers, for nurse leadership, all-staff, and recognition events
- Advanced manufacturing, food processing, and renewable fuels operations, for supervisor development and shift-based sessions
- Hastings College, for staff, athletics, student, and community programming
- Central Community College Hastings Campus, for career and technical program events and workforce partnerships
- Bryan College of Health Sciences at the Mary Lanning campus, for nursing student and preceptor programming
- Hastings Public Schools and area districts, for staff in-service and leadership days
- The City of Hastings, Adams County, the Hastings Area Chamber, and Hastings Economic Development, along with Nebraska statewide associations meeting in the area
Hastings employers with a story they are not telling.
Healthcare is where Chris operates, and hospitals are usually the worst offenders at leaving their own reason unspoken.
Hospitals and Senior Care
Clinical teams caring for the same community they live in, which makes purpose concrete rather than abstract.
Advanced Manufacturing and Processing
Plants where the work is skilled, the wages are strong, and the meaning of it rarely gets discussed.
Colleges and Nursing Education
Institutions building the workforce their own community will depend on.
Districts, City, and County
Public sector teams whose work shows up in the lives of people they see at the grocery store.
Hastings and south-central Nebraska venues.
- Hastings College facilities for campus, athletics, and community programming
- Mary Lanning Healthcare for nurse leadership, all-staff, and recognition days
- Central Community College Hastings Campus for workforce and program events
- Plant and production facilities for supervisor development and shift-based sessions
- Hastings Public Schools facilities for staff in-service days
- Chamber banquets, luncheons, and Adams County community gatherings
- Grand Island, Kearney, Minden, and communities across south-central Nebraska
Hastings events Chris speaks at.
Hospital and Health System Events
Leadership days, nurse recognition events, and all-staff meetings.
Purpose and Engagement
Sessions on connecting daily work to the reason the organization exists at all.
Retention and Frontline Leadership
Supervisor development for teams built largely from local hires.
Company and Leadership Meetings
All-hands gatherings, annual meetings, kickoffs, and banquets.
Nurse Leadership
Charge nurse and manager development, including preceptor and new graduate sessions.
Rural and Regional Healthcare
Sessions for organizations serving communities across central Nebraska.
Keynote topics for your Hastings 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 Hastings
Has Chris spoken to healthcare, manufacturing, and campus audiences?
Does Chris travel to Hastings?
Is this just a talk about mission statements?
Can this work for a plant floor audience rather than an office one?
We hire mostly local graduates. Does that change anything?
What does a Hastings keynote cost?
Can Chris speak virtually to a Nebraska audience?
Keynote speaking across central Nebraska.
Each city page covers the local employers, the venues Chris speaks in, and the specific workforce pressure leaders there are working on.
Bring Chris to your Hastings 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 · Nebraska speaking · All locations
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