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Kate Luczko is currently the senior director of HealthForce NH, a collaborative effort to grow, retain, and sustain a health care workforce in New Hampshire. Earlier in her career, she was the president and CEO for the nonprofit StayWorkPlay, was the director of marketing and business development for Harvey Construction, and was also the president and CEO for the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce.
Luczko is also the host of the “People, Place, & Purpose” podcast, sharing stories of businesses owners and entrepreneurs. In her spare time, she also helps friends and family buy and sell real estate and teaches yoga. Kate is secretary and treasurer for the board of directors and governance committee chair for Bellwether Community Credit Union, sits on the Palace Theatre’s Community Advisory Board, and is a member of the NH Champions in Action Selection Committee for Citizens. Luczko has an MBA with a certificate in leadership of nonprofit organizations from SNHU, and a B.A. in business from UNH.
What challenges do you face in your current role?
So, in a nutshell, HealthForce NH is trying to get more people into the health care workforce and make it a better place to work. This is not a New Hampshire problem — it exists all over the country that there’s a shortage of folks working in health care. There are vacancies all over.
There’s things happening over here and over there, and someone’s doing something here, and so we hope to be that central entity, that convener. We’re launching a new website to bring all the pieces together. So, if you’re looking to figure out, what is higher education like in the state, you can go to this one place and see who has what. We have different career profiles within health care that will show starting salary, median salary, more established salary; here’s where you can get trained for it in New Hampshire. Here’s the kinds of places you can work, with links to other programs like a summer camp for health care careers. We do a lot to share the work of partners on social media, but also to promote the careers out there.
Especially in the health care industry, not everybody knows the pathways to get something. It’s not just clinical, but also the folks who work in facilities or dietary or administrative roles. It’s all of the different roles that make the health care system work.
One of the things we’ll have on the new website is a link for financial resources, like a searchable database, because there’s scholarships and state programs that will pay for training.
What advice would you give to future female business leaders?
Don’t be afraid to try new things and put yourself out there and connect with people.
My mom used to say, if you don’t ask, the answer is always no.
Take that opportunity to ask the question, or ask for someone’s time. You also don’t have to know what you want to do the rest of your life, and you shouldn’t necessarily feel stuck. Be willing to take those chances and define what your own path looks like. You can try new things and reinvent yourself at any point.
You were at the Greater Nashua Chamber during COVID. What challenges did you face during that time?
I started there in January of 2020. I feel like a chamber should be what a community needs, not necessarily what a chamber has always been. So, we did some focus groups early on to figure out, are we meeting the needs of those in the Greater Nashua area? And if not, what are some things that we could do to improve that? And then COVID hit.
Membership had been declining for a number of years, and so despite COVID, we were able to get the organization back in the black. But when COVID hit, we relied on membership dues. And some of the members were thriving, but many members had to close their doors and so they weren’t going to pay their dues, and events stopped.
I think one of the best things that happened was starting the first day, we met with the city’s economic development department on Zoom every morning and talked about the latest of what was happening. We expanded at some point to bring in the Small Business Development Center, and we had community calls so people could talk about whether it was PPE or different funding opportunities. And, who’s open for business and how are you doing this? It was a lot of keeping the balance between keeping things afloat internally and also being one of the players helping to support the community at large. I was really impressed with the way that people came together.
