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Small-town values, experience guide QC Banner CEO

BY MARK MORAN Tribune Staff Writer

For Brian Kellar, health care has always been about small towns and the personal patient care.

Kellar, the new CEO of Banner Ironwood Medical Center in Queen Creek, grew up in South Dakota, went to college and graduate school there, and where found and fell in love with taking care of people in small towns.

“I always said the best part of being in a small community is you go to a grocery store and you see 10 people you know. The worst part of a small community is you go to the grocery store and you see 10 people you know,” said Kellar, who has been with Banner Health Care for eight years and earned his current position in June.

“I am very much from the rural end of health care – where you’re a lot more geo-

BRIAN KELLAR

graphically and resource constricted,” he said. “So, it forces you to be a jack of many, many more trades. It’s a great way to prepare and align your understanding with some of the minutiae, some of the detail and really get into the why we do what we do and how we do it.”

Kellar said you learn those details much more quickly in a small town than in a large market - the ins and outs of hospital administration, bookkeeping, even patient care.

Kellar went on to become a nursing home administrator after a mentor talked him into taking some health care administration classes in grad school.

“I had people give me projects mainly because they didn’t want to do them,” he joked. “But I saw so much more innovative potential in that space so I just gravitated that way and that’s what drew me into the hospital end of the equation.

“It didn’t take long to discover that health care is a constantly changing, ripe for innovation and reimagination environment. It’s really as much a calling as it is a pursuit,” he said.

Though he remains a true Midwesterner at heart, that calling brought Kellar to Queen Creek – which is by no means a small town anymore – and led him into hospital administration and away from nursing homes.

He is confronted head on every day with the break-neck pace of growth in Queen Creek, and that is reflected in hospital expansion.

Banner Ironwood is one of only four hospitals in the Valley with an emergency air ambulance, which allows Ironwood to help outlying communities during critical situations.

“We are a transfer base station with a helicopter onsite. We are transferring people to places for services that maybe don’t

see CEO page 20

Copenhagen enjoys a success in first year in Gilbert

BY ALISON STANTON Tribune Contributor

When Copenhagen closed its Tempe location last October and moved to a new location in SanTan Village, CEO and President Jens Hansen was understandably a bit nervous.

The family-owned, full service furniture business had called Tempe home for four decades, and Hansen hoped Copenhagen’s many loyal customers would continue to shop at the Gilbert showroom.

As it turns out, Hansen had nothing to worry about.

“Moving from the Tempe location to Gilbert after 40 years is one of the best things we have ever done,” Hansen said.

“The community has really embraced us.”

While people who used to shop at the Tempe location are definitely coming to the Gilbert store, Hansen said he has been pleasantly surprised at the number of new customers who come in to check out the selection of modern European contemporary furniture. “During the first grand opening month, 70 percent of sales were to new customers,” Hansen said. “The Gilbert community was definitely ready for Copenhagen.”

Although Copenhagen’s second location in Scottsdale remains popular with customers, Hansen says they are also making their way into the new showroom.

“Our Gilbert location really feels like it could be the flagship store. The Scottsdale store is a beautiful building, but Gilbert is right up there with it. It’s the same size as the Scottsdale store but it feels bigger and we have added some new sales people,” he said.

Speaking of his staff, Hansen said the team at the Gilbert location has had “nothing but smiles” since the store opened. “I am very satisfied with the group we have working there. They are all Copenhagen-minded.”

Like many stores, Copenhagen was impacted by supply chain issues; fortunately, Hansen noted, this situation seems to be mostly resolved.

“We were able to get through it by keeping in touch with our customers and letting them know about these unfortunate and unforeseeable delays,” he said, adding that thankfully, they are now fulfilling orders as normal.

Looking ahead, Hansen said Copenhagen is preparing to add some

exist in Queen Creek yet,” he said.

In the last year alone, Banner has added a pediatrics unit and expanded its robotic surgery wing at Ironwood, opened a surgery center and hired additional specialists and physicians to provide more robust services to the booming population.

Kellar has also focused on building good working relationships with area employers, consulting with them on their wellness programs and setting company policies in their businesses.

“As they have healthier populations of people and they can help people be healthier, I’m sure their premiums go down,” Kellar said. “Everybody wins. Absolutely everybody wins. We’d love to keep you from needing to be in the Emergency Department.”

In the almost two decades that Kellar has been involved in healthcare administration, workforce development has moved front and center on the priority list, especially when it comes to people working in some of the most critical areas of patient care.

“A lot of people have exited the work force and we have known that there was shortage coming for nursing predominantly for many, many years and the previous viral pandemic massively accelerated that,” Kellar said.

“We’ve maybe not felt the pains others have felt in some areas, but we’re always recruiting because we’re always growing.”

Banner Ironwood started a new program this summer called Camp Scrubs; a week-long deep dive designed to get middle school kids interested in health care as a career.

“It’s not just doctors and nurses,” Kellar said. “There are outstanding and very fulfilling callings in how to serve others right here in their backyard.”

Kellar’s number one focus will be to continue trying to educate and take care of people in Ironwood’s service area, but with a shift in focus from what medicine has traditionally been.

“We need to shift from sick care to health care. So instead of caring for people when they have an illness or acute episode to how do we prevent people from ever getting sick? Caring for their health instead of caring for their illness,” he said.

“I think for a long time, health care was just about trying to continuously increase the technological opportunities and innovations to be able to address health issues,” Kellar said.

Married with three children and an active volunteer in church and civic organizations, Kellar vows to bring a “people first” approach to the position, with a focus on keeping them out of the hospital in the first place.

“That’s become more of a true north so that we can innovate and help people live better lives, not waiting for them to get sick,” he said.

Banner Ironwood Medical Center, near the intersection of Rittenhouse and Combs roads in Queen Creek, currently has 47 private rooms but enough land that it could expand the hospital to include more than 500 beds and the supporting health care services to go with them.

The hospital’s website lists emergency services, obstetrics, surgery, pediatrics and general medical care among its areas of focus.

“First and foremost, we are in the people business and we are exploding in population, which is diversifying the needs,” Kellar said. “How do we keep up with that without overextending ourselves? That’s our calling and that’s what we’re excited to do,” he said.  new products to their inventory, just in time for fall and winter.

“Our collection is ever evolving and there is always something new going on in our showrooms,” he said.

“Customers who visit us this month will find things are different next month, but the items I call our ‘bread and butter’ products we will always carry.” Hansen said he is definitely pleased with the decision to relocate to Gilbert from Tempe, and looks forward to serving his valued customers for many decades to come. “The last year went off like gangbusters. It has been really, really super,” he said. “We truly appreciate our customers very much, as well as all of the support that the Gilbert community has given us.” 

Copenhagen

2000 S. Santan Village Pkwy, Gilbert (480) 828-3080 copenhagenliving.com.

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