Open Doors

Linda Knodel, ’03, always wanted to be a nurse. “I remember seeing nurses at church wearing their white uniforms and nursing caps. When I was in fourth grade, I did candy striping and cared for a woman who was 103 years old. I would feed her, and the nurses would tell me that she wouldn’t eat for anyone but me; she would wait all day until I got there,” she said. “So, I thought I would give nursing a shot, and I’m glad I did, because it has given me so many opportunities.”

Knodel has been a nurse now for about 49 years. She began her career at St. Alexius in Bismarck and progressively took on more and more leadership roles — running the medical staff office, starting home care division, running the medical records office, and more.

“I remember coming home one day and telling my husband, ‘I gotta go back to school because I know nothing about this stuff I’m being asked to do,’” she said. So, she began to search for a program where she could go to school and work at the same time, as well as be home with her three little kids. She found a college in Maine where she could take classes online and fly out for one week each year for five years. As soon as she graduated with her undergraduate degree in health care administration, one of her mentors called her and asked why her name wasn’t on the list for the master’s program at the University of Minnesota. “I told her, ‘I don’t graduate until June 28,’ and she told me, ‘The classes don’t start until July 12,’” Knodel said, laughing. That conversation is what inspired her to pursue her master’s in health care administration.

While she was serving as the chief nursing officer at St. Alexius, they decided to pursue Magnet certification for the hospital. Magnet certification designates organizations worldwide where nursing leaders successfully align their nursing strategic goals to improve the organization’s patient outcomes, and less than 1% of hospitals have this certification. Knodel began looking at the standards and saw that one of the criteria was that the chief nurse has a bachelor’s or master’s degree in nursing, which she did not have.

Some of Linda's earliest memories are seeing nurses in their uniforms and white caps at church.

“I said, ‘I’m holding this organization back,’” Knodel said. “I only had a diploma in nursing. But lo and behold, Sister Mariah was sitting right there and said, ‘Linda, we will start a program right now, because we are going to get Magnet status.’ Within 10 days, that wonderful woman had it all figured out, and our first class took place.”

Fifteen months later, Knodel and a group of her colleagues graduated with their master’s degrees in nursing, and a year later, St. Alexius achieved Magnet status.

“We were the first hospital in North Dakota to do that,” Knodel said proudly. She spent over 30 years at St. Alexius and loved every second of it. “The people I worked with in my first job as a night shift nurse are still some of my best friends. They were so welcoming to me as a new grad,” she said.

Eventually, a recruiter called her about an opening in St. Louis with the Sisters of Mercy. She took the opportunity and began the Magnet certification process there. Three years later, she was offered a position in their corporate office.

“I thought, ‘Why not?’ When a door opens, it’s an opportunity to influence what’s going on even more,” she said. In that role, she spent five years as chief corporate nurse for 44 hospitals. “Everything was going great, and I was thinking I would retire in that role, but then I got an offer to move to California and be the chief nursing executive over 64,000 nurses with Kaiser Permanente.”

She initially turned the offer down since she was close to retirement, but the recruiter convinced her to meet some of the people. She ended up accepting the opportunity and spent the next four years in California as senior vice president, chief nursing executive, overseeing nurses from coast to coast and all the way down to Hawaii.

“Every role I’ve had, I’ve loved every single one of them,” Knodel said. “A lot of what I do as an administrator makes things better for the nurses at the bedside. I’ve always felt that the role that I played was to connect the administration and the nurses.

“Throughout my career, doors were opened for me, and I took the risk to go through those doors,” she continued. “I had the opportunity to be exposed to some of the best of the best and learn from them.

“We’re all connected,” she said. “You never know whose life you are touching, and at St. Alexius it felt like we were a part of something bigger. And that’s because of the Benedictine values and the legacy of the Sisters — they came into this community and served.”

Although Knodel technically retired from Kaiser Permanente, she does not view herself as retired. “There are more doors that are opening right now, and I’m deciding where I want to give my energy and where I want to serve,” she said. However, now that she isn’t in a full-time role anymore, she is looking forward to spending more time with family, especially her husband and grandchildren.

Knodel says that she encourages aspiring leaders to get in contact with a mentor. She currently mentors three health care professionals and has seen the impact of mentors on her own career. “You also have to surround yourself with the right people,” she said. “And you have to love it, whatever you do. If you don’t love it, don’t do it.”