As he travels the state, John Twardos finds many Iowans have a meaningful connection to Lutheran Services of Iowa, one of Iowa’s largest human service organizations. “These are big life-changing moments,” he said. “Many people know LSI for a service or something that touched them. … But not everyone knows us for everything we do.” Twardos came to LSI 2½ years ago in January 2016 after a career steeped in hospital administration. The nonprofit service organization operates out of offices on University Avenue and works in foster care, refugee assistance and much more. LSI started as an orphanage in 1864 for children orphaned during the Civil War. Twardos gave us a look at what LSI has been up to in recent years to transform its culture and about his background.

Tell me a little bit about yourself. 
My career started out primarily in hospital administration. I started working in hospitals when I was in high school. My mom was a nurse at the local hospital in Chicago and she got me a job. I would work there on weekends and during the summer. I did all the entry-level jobs, wheeling patients around, putting away supplies. In fact, my first job was in the operating room. I used to get patients to bring them to the operating room and then take them back when they finished with their procedures. After a series of jobs like that in different areas of the hospital, I got a job in the hospital finance department and I was helping people with their bills. That led me to an interest in not so much the clinical side of the hospital but running the hospital as a business enterprise. I did go get a graduate degree in hospital administration from St. Louis University, then spent a number of years in the hospital sector, which gravitated to the mental health sector. I worked in that on both the investor-owned, for-profit and the nonprofit side. I did that for about 15 years, actually more like 20.

Then I had been at a place for about 15 years and I kind of mentioned to someone I kind of want to do something different. Shortly after, this person said to me, “You know, I got an opportunity from this recruiter and they are looking for someone to be COO of this company that serves people with developmental disability.” I had had some exposure to that from working in the mental health field, but not what I would call a lot of direct experience. This was another Lutheran organization. I had never worked in the faith-based area before. … They [Bethesda, based in Wisconsin] had services in 14 different states and they did a lot of international development work [through an alliance, Impact, with five organizations]. In addition to my day job as being COO of this 14-state enterprise, I was also responsible for this international development program. 

The problem with this job is I was always traveling; I really traveled a lot domestically and internationally. I remember sometimes I would wake up and I would think, am I in the U.S. or not in the U.S.? Am I in Wisconsin or am I in California? I was with them about eight years and then this opportunity presented itself to be CEO. … We are a smaller organization than Bethesda, operating in only one state. I view that more as a blessing than not. I travel still extensively throughout Iowa. I’ll be traveling this weekend and not at home, but that’s pretty rare. For the most part, I go somewhere — Council Bluffs, Davenport — and I’m back the same day.

It’s been over two years since you started. What are some things you are proud of or that you feel you’ve accomplished in that time? 
We are what you would call a widely dispersed organization. We have over 1,000 employees that work in 35 different sites around the state. Some of them are large sites, where we have more than 100 employees, and some are smaller, where there are 10. Not every office is the same, either in terms of scope or in variety of services. We have nine main service lines at LSI, but they are not all each provided at the locations. When I got on board, the board asked me to prepare a vision for LSI. I broke that into what I call some transition goals, what’s going to get me up and running over the next six months, and then a series of short-term goals, six to 18 months, and then a series of longer-term objectives.

I’m a big believer in having an aligned organizational culture. When I got here, I spent a lot of time initially out on the road accompanying different service workers to people’s homes to see what we did within the service line. Some of this was in rural Iowa, some of it was in metropolitan areas. I wanted to get out there and meet our teams and see how we do things here. What I found is we didn’t have an organizational culture; we had a bucket of cultures. Culture was largely aligned with what part of the state you worked in or what service line you worked in.

In the summer of 2016 we set about with organizational culture initiative that was going to provide a common foundation and a common set of values we would hold people accountable to, whether you worked in the residential program in Waverly or the foster care program in western Iowa. We populated this culture initiative with what I would call an atypical group. It wasn’t executive-heavy. It included people from different service lines, different geographic parts. Then I stood back and got out of the way and let them define what they aspired for LSI. We came up with the theme “My LSI, My Why.”  

They came up with a list of likes and dislikes; there were more dislikes. We said, “You don’t want it to be that; what do you want it to be?” There were about 15 people on this culture team. I attended those meetings but largely just to facilitate, not to say here’s how it is going to be. The value statements, “Unite, Respect, Grow and Empower,” we told people, if you want to remember them, just think of “urge.” … It’s not uncommon when people get up to do a presentation they start with their “My Why” statement. 

We had such a success that we wanted to keep the momentum going. We’ve appointed a woman by the name of Cannady Fritzjunker as our director of culture and team engagement. She continues to be a driver for this so that it’s not a one-and-done thing. It’s important to us to keep this momentum and keep pushing it forward. We developed a number of employee subcommittees around the culture initiative. We asked people, “What do you want us to do better?”

One of the other things I’m proud of is the type of person is attracted to work at LSI. We get a lot of young people here; many of them it’s their first job out of college or they do an internship here and they decide to stay. They tend to be people who are very idealistic, enthusiastic, they want to change the world, they want to help kids, they want to help families. You don’t get rich working at LSI, but you get a lot of gratification. People like being part of a team that is doing good in the community and the world. 

What are some challenges facing LSI or similar organizations?
One of the key things that LSI as well as our colleagues at similar organizations face is how to to recruit, train, develop and retain a workforce. We spend a lot of our organizational momentum on that very thing. … We are also challenged by a stagnant reimbursement environment [with contracts with the state human services department]. Iowa has an underfunded child welfare system.

What should business leaders in Greater Des Moines know about LSI?
LSI tries to be a good community partner, and we work with a lot of other organizations that range from universities to businesses to other health care entities to collaborate. One thing I’ve found, an organization like LSI can be all things to all people. It’s important for us to have conversations about what we can help them with and what they can help us with.

What makes you tick?
My wife makes me tick. We are a great team. Whereas I’m a more serious, businesslike person, she was a theater major, she’s very artistic. Outside of work to relax, my wife and I both like to cook, we both like to garden, we both like sporting events.