May 4, 2021

This week’s Up-and-Comer is Ryan Schmidtman, ERP/corporate services IT business analyst at Sanford Health.

Name: Ryan Schmidtman

Age: 30

Hometown: Sioux Falls

What brought you to Sioux Falls?

My family moved to Sioux Falls in the summer of 2003 when my dad accepted a new position within Dorsey & Whitney LLP. Initially, it was a tough sell to convince our young family of five that “life on the prairie” could ever compare to the hustle and bustle we’d learned to enjoy living in the suburbs of Minneapolis, but boy am I grateful that my parents’ ingenious plan to “give it a try” — brought to fruition only by the innate bargaining power of promises of my very own motorized scooter and “first dibs” on selection of bedrooms in the basement — provided enough activation energy to truly catalyze our family’s relocation to South Dakota. Years later, I’m here to tell you this state really is “America’s Best Kept Secret.”

What keeps you in Sioux Falls?  I spent some time away from Sioux Falls during my early college years — St. Peter, Minn.; Barcelona, Spain — but I was quick to rush back to South Dakota as a young adult who still had a lot to figure out in life but was entirely sure of one thing: “All the success in the world means nothing without the ones you love.” Although I have a deep-seated yearning for worldly travel and adventure, the thought of not being nearby to celebrate a birthday, attend a graduation or to have the privilege of looking my mom in the eyes from across the dinner table on Mother’s Day to remind her just how remarkable she is was simply not a compromise I was willing to make. With my middle brother, Dan, 25, pursuing his MD as a graduate student at the Sanford School of Medicine and my youngest brother, Mike, 20, currently completing his undergraduate coursework at Augustana University, our family has been extremely blessed to be afforded the immeasurable luxuries of proximity and togetherness when coupled with good health. Nothing on Earth means more to me than my family; it’s what brought me to Sioux Falls, it’s what keeps me here to this day, and I hope that when I can finally manage to collect enough pennies to buy my awe-inspiring girlfriend of seven-plus years the ring that she rightfully deserves, I may have the opportunity to extend family roots of my own right here in the “605.”

What’s your favorite thing about your job?

Working for the technology solutions team at Sanford Health provides an expansive and extraordinary platform through which our team can effectuate widespread business process improvement by serving as a strategic partner for each unique service line across the enterprise. Due to the ever-changing, dynamic nature of health care, it’s next to impossible to deliver top-notch patient outcomes without a robust technological infrastructure that allows caregivers to perform miracles at maximum efficiency, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without downtime. Our culture statement empowers our team of 700-plus IT professionals to “choose innovation,” “run towards disruption” and “take responsibility for making it happen” daily. Under this framework, each day at the office feels like a new opportunity to make a positive impact on the public health and vitality of our surrounding communities by ensuring that our 50,000-plus employees have the tools they need to be successful and that our business continues to evolve in ways that will position Sanford Health at the forefront of strategic growth health care companies, both domestically and globally, for years to come.

How did you get connected to your industry?

That’s a great question to which I do not immediately have a straightforward answer; to be entirely transparent, I wonder every day how all the divergent paths throughout the course of my life led me to where I’m at today. For anyone out there who struggles to identify your true “life calling,” I’d encourage you to keep it simple by always remembering to follow your heart, continuing to show up with a positive, can-do attitude that’s accompanied by a smile even on the days where it feels challenging to do so and by constantly reassessing your allocation of time to ensure that the people you’re spending the bulk of your time with and the activities you most frequently engage in continue to align with your top priorities and the personal values you’d like to be remembered by. I tell people all the time: “The human experience is not all that different in the end. Many of us go through largely the same chapters, just at different times in our lives.” Stay true to who you are, be kind to others, and let everything else sort itself out. If you spend your time doing the things you’re truly most passionate about, you’ll end up where you’re meant to be in the end.

Describe Sanford Health in three words.

Impassioned. Innovative. Intentional.

What is something someone might be surprised to learn about you?

I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that’s why I succeed.”

What’s your favorite way to give back to your community?

Mentorship is very near-and-dear to my heart; I’ve been blessed by the opportunity to serve as a high school soccer coach, which inevitably has opened the door to many mentorship opportunities as I work with young student-athletes to develop the life skills that will set them up for success long after their playing days are over. Conversely, my life has forever been changed by the countless mentors who have broadened my perspective and expedited my personal and professional development over the years. Never be afraid to show humility by admitting that you don’t have it all figured out; seek out individuals who you’re confident you can learn from, ask them for their advice and candid insights into what experiential wisdom they’ve collected along the way that has ultimately allowed them to be successful, however it is that you personally define “success” or by whatever standards of “excellence” you find most compelling. Then, down the road, as opportunities present themselves for you to pay it forward, don’t be so egocentric that you forget to take the time to recount all those who played an instrumental role in your ascension over time. Take the time to sit down, truly listen and engage. By doing so, we empower the next generation of leaders to flourish from the knowledge we’ve acquired along the way. Mentorship is immensely powerful due to its cyclical, symbiotic nature — whether you serve as the mentor or the mentee makes no difference. I can’t advocate for the transformative power of mentorship enough.

What’s one business you’d like to see in Sioux Falls that isn’t here now?

A Spanish-influenced tapas bar.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

I’d like to think that I’ll still be here in Sioux Falls, close to family and friends, continuing to serve this community in positions that align with my personal values so that I can actively contribute to ensuring that our forward-thinking city continues to serve as a beacon of hope, prosperity, inclusiveness, innovation and boundless strategic growth, united by our belief that “in order to go far, we must go together.”