St. Cloud man looks back on time at CentraCare as he nears retirement

ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Terry Pladson is the only solo president CentraCare Health has ever had, but his office is more functional than palatial.

It's down a long row of offices in the administration wing at St. Cloud Hospital. A $225 million tower expansion, completed in 2012, mostly obscures the Mississippi River outside his window. But that's nothing Pladson would complain about. For more than a decade as CentraCare's lone top official, his focus has been much more on what happens with the organization than a view of anything else.

His tenure comes to a close on Dec. 31 when he retires and hands responsibility to Dr. Kenneth Holmen, formerly a vice president of HealthPartners and chief medical officer at Regions Hospital in St. Paul.

Even in these final weeks, it's business as usual for Pladson. At his desk, he's feverishly trying to complete details on a merger with Sartell-based Adult & Pediatric Urology. Nearby, several plaques honoring CentraCare as one of Minnesota's best workplaces overshadow Pladson's eight diplomas and certificates — a symbol of the impact his career had as employment grew by more than 200 percent.

Pladson was present for the birth of CentraCare, which emerged from the alignment of St. Cloud Hospital with the St. Cloud Clinic of Internal Medicine in 1995. The not-for-profit organization had revenue of $176 million in 1995. A presentation to the community Tuesday will show that fiscal 2014 brought revenue of $1.052 billion - growth of almost 500 percent since 1995.

"I'm most proud of recruiting the superb people who work in this organization," said Pladson, 65, who grew up in St. Cloud and returned just before his 30th birthday. "For me and all the people who work here, it's not just patients we're serving. It's our friends and family, our neighbors. We want them to be happy to get their care here and I'm proud at the way we can give it to them."

In the early 1990s, the landscape of health care was changing. Hospitals and clinics were merging. The hospital was a target for other health systems, and Pladson was thinking about the future. He saw the growth of organizations like Allina and Fairview and thought of a better alternative.

John Frobenius was hospital president two decades ago and Pladson was president of the clinic. They served together as co-presidents for seven years until Frobenius retired in 2002.

"He was a leader in more than just his own clinic," said Frobenius, who came to St. Cloud in 1985 — shortly after Pladson became chief of the medical staff, elected leader of all physicians serving at the hospital. "Terry wasn't just smart, he was a very clear thinker. He didn't go through a lot of game playing. What you see is what you got ... Ultimately, we were able to form a partnership that has been beneficial to the region, to the participants and was supportive of and acceptable to the Catholic church and maintained the fidelity and mission of the St. Cloud Hospital."

That partnership delineates Pladson's two careers, though he approached both as part of a team, and the constant thread in each was a desire to help people.

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Sue Pladson has known her husband since grade school. They were high school sweethearts and, after Terry graduated from Technical High School in 1967, he thought about being a dentist. They married in 1969 and he was taking pre-dental coursework at St. Cloud State University when his wife conspired to change the course of his life.

One of Sue's uncles, Lee Mathews, was a pediatrician and also convinced Terry to pursue medicine. After two years at Marquette, he transferred to Minnesota, where tuition was cheaper. Nonetheless, Terry credits Sue with putting him through medical school. After graduating in 1973, he went to work as an intern at St. Paul-Ramsey Hospital — which later became Regions. The pay wasn't much, about $9,500 a year, and by that time they had two daughters.

To supplement their income, Terry started "moonlighting" at St. Cloud Hospital, one weekend a month from noon Saturday to 6 a.m. Monday. His connections grew to where, when he completed a pulmonary fellowship in 1978, the family moved to St. Cloud and Terry joined Tom Luby with Internal Medicine Associates.

At first, it was just the two of them in a small office in the Security Federal Building downtown. In 1985, they merged with the St. Cloud Internists Clinic to form the St. Cloud Clinic of Internal Medicine.

By the mid-1990s, the clinic had grown to 40 physicians. Although the vote to join CentraCare was not unanimous, all 40 stayed on as staff of the new clinic.

That team approach is one Pladson developed from his earliest days as a physician. From 1974-77, as he completed his internal medicine training at the university, he found intensive care unit patients to be the most challenging and rewarding.

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In 1995, CentraCare started with one hospital, one clinic and one senior living campus. Pladson cut back his practice to about half-time to accommodate his new administrative responsibility. By 2002, he was down to a half-a-day a week.

"There was a segment of the community that was very disappointed to see him take an administrative job," Frobenius said. "He was really a highly regarded pulmonologist."

Pladson enrolled in a special MBA program at the University of St. Thomas. There were three doctors in a class of 24 specializing in medical group management. Pladson was one of 13 who graduated.

His goal in those early years as a top administrator was to recruit the best physicians and practices he could to bolster CentraCare. He can say he was successful. When he retires, there will be six hospitals, nursing homes and senior apartments in six communities, and 17 clinics across the region. His recruitment has aided in the development of the CentraCare Heart & Vascular Center, Coborn Cancer Center and the CentraCare Kidney Program, with other specialties in progress. Perhaps surprisingly, Pladson expected more rapid expansion.

Sister Kara Hennes of the St. Benedict Monastery worked at the hospital many years ago after nurses training. Later she served as a county nurse, then came back to the hospital and was vice president of nursing for 12 years.

"It's a real credit to Terry's leadership over the years and the leaders of the hospitals," said Hennes, who is on the hospital board. "They sincerely wanted to work together, and that grew out of the Sisters' original mission. The Sisters were really comfortable with the creation of CentraCare and its expansion. We have served in a lot of these communities and we want the people to be able to get the best care possible. We were never anxious about it.

"Terry's calmness is what I'm going to remember from his leadership," Hennes added. "He gets input from other people before he makes a decision and works at having shared goals and good planning. Those are gifts he brought to the team he works with. I think that's why a lot of the transitions have gone so well."

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Jim Davis is a former vice president for corporate services at CentraCare. He served as president of hospitals in Melrose, Long Prairie, Paynesville and Monticello, as well as president of Central Minnesota Emergency Physicians, until his retirement in 2013.

Through the years, Davis also noticed Pladson's way of connecting personally with patients and colleagues. A walk through a CentraCare building usually included time to talk with just about everyone they ran into.

When administrators traveled together, Pladson often volunteered to drive — and made sure the car was stocked with the passengers' favorite soft drink. "He knew you personally and cared about you personally," Davis said. "That's just an example of the little kindnesses he lives out."

Pladson's understanding of finance and insurance helped him become the administrative leader of CentraCare. His style and expertise built trust.

"Terry has absolute integrity," Davis said. "So he was easy to trust to those of us inside who knew him well but it was similar for those he related to outside of CentraCare."

Without Pladson, Davis wonders whether CentraCare would have remained independent.

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So where does Terry Pladson go from here? He says he wants to get involved in volunteer leadership of area organizations, similar to how his mentor (some say idol) and former hospital board chair Al Kremers has become involved with the Greater St. Cloud Development Corp.

"I think his motivation always has been to help people, and in different ways," Sue Pladson said. "As a physician, he was healing. As an administrator, with all the changes that were coming, he could be more active in a day-to-day role and help people in that way. He's the most compassionate person I've ever known. And I'm not just saying that because I'm his wife."

Certainly, once the weather warms, there will be festive times at his cabin on Big Birch Lake with his five grandchildren. His goal for this summer is for them to teach him wake-surfing.

"I'm sure he'll be busy," said Sue Pladson, who makes sure people know she's not retiring from her real estate business. "He's usually go-go-go. ... I think he might be busier in retirement than he was working. I just have to remind him to be careful because he's so active and he wants to try all these sports."

"I think his is one of the cool stories about American health care," Holmen said of Pladson. "A young doctor comes to town and spends his career taking care of patients. Along the way, he is recognized by his colleagues as being someone to tap on the shoulder. It's a recognition of the skill sets and trust that people have in him.

"Putting together a health care system is not easy. It's fine and dandy to talk about governance and balance sheets, but at the end of the day it's about trust."