{"id":6364,"date":"2026-05-01T11:16:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ntcmn.edu\/news\/?p=6364"},"modified":"2026-05-01T11:16:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:16:21","slug":"retired-sanford-health-ceo-karla-eischens-addresses-ntcs-class-of-2026-on-may-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ntcmn.edu\/news\/2026\/05\/01\/retired-sanford-health-ceo-karla-eischens-addresses-ntcs-class-of-2026-on-may-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Retired Sanford Health CEO Karla Eischens Addresses NTC’s Class of 2026 on May 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

A portrait of Karla Eischens that includes her name and the text \"2026 NTC IMPACT Award recipient\"<\/p>\n

Grad plans are submitted, speakers are confirmed and other final preparations are underway as NTC—Bemidji’s Technical College looks forward to its annual Commencement ceremony, May 8 at Bemidji’s Sanford Center.<\/p>\n

The ceremony begins at 4 p.m. and will last approximately one hour.<\/p>\n

Retired Sanford Health of Bemidji CEO Karla Eischens will address NTC graduates as the second recipient of the college’s IMPACT Award.<\/p>\n

About the NTC Impact Award<\/h2>\n

NTC’s Innovation, Mastery, Progress, Achievement, Community and Technology (IMPACT) Award<\/a> honors individuals who demonstrate exceptional innovation through creative problem-solving, mastery of technical skills and outstanding academic performance. It recognizes progress in personal and professional growth, achievements in competitions and projects and community engagement through active participation and collaboration. The award also acknowledges the application of technology to develop practical and ethical solutions to problems while making meaningful contributions to NTC, the Bemidji community and the region’s workforce through service and study in technical fields.<\/p>\n

Karla Eischens<\/strong>, retired president and CEO of Sanford Health Bemidji, is the second recipient of NTC’s IMPACT Award. Eischens has spent her career supporting health and wellbeing in Bemidji and across Northern Minnesota. After earning her pharmacy degree from the University of Minnesota, she worked in a variety of roles in retail, infusion and inpatient pharmacy, in operations for Progressive Health Care and at the Veterans Administration Center. She joined Sanford Health as a pharmacist and later was Director of Pharmacy. In that role, she oversaw the development of the home infusion pharmacy at the Joe Lueken Cancer Center, opened the Sanford Blackduck pharmacy and helped to expand a regional drug-pricing program that enabled more patients in need to access medication. She was promoted to director of operations in 2019, overseeing the women’s and children’s services, the pharmacy and the Joe Lueken Cancer Center, among other responsibilities. She then was promoted to vice president of operations, where she helped open the region’s first crisis center, expansions of the intensive care unit and managed operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

She was promoted to president and CEO in 2022, guiding the organization’s continued growth until her retirement in 2025. She was named a “Top Rural CEO to Know” by Becker’s Hospital Review in both 2024 and 2025, and in 2025 she received the Bemidji Area United Way Tribute Award.<\/p>\n

Eischens will receive the NTC IMPACT Award during a private reception on May 6.<\/p>\n

Additional Speakers<\/h2>\n

Also joining this year’s graduates will be Jim Grabowska, a member of the Board of Trustees for the Minnesota State system of colleges and universities. Grabowska, who was appointed to the Board of Trustees by Gov. Tim Walz in 2022, is a career educator who retired in 2021 after 23 years on the faculty at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Prior to that he taught a variety of subjects at the high school level, both in the U.S. and abroad, and also taught on the faculties at Gustavus Adolphus College, St. John’s University\/College of St. Benedict and at the state university of Cuenca, Ecuador.<\/p>\n

Grabowska will deliver greetings from Minnesota State Chancellor Scott Olson.<\/p>\n

The student commencement speaker will be announced at this year’s ceremony.<\/p>\n

2026 Commencement Quick Facts<\/h3>\n

Northwest Technical College will hold its 2026 commencement ceremony on Friday, May 8, at 4 p.m. in Bemidji’s Sanford Center. More information is available online<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eischens is NTC’s second IMPACT Award recipient, honored for her work im-proving health care in Northern Minnesota.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homepage","category-top-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ntcmn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ntcmn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ntcmn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntcmn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntcmn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntcmn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6366,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntcmn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6364\/revisions\/6366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntcmn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ntcmn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntcmn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntcmn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}