This year's event features keynote speaker, Judith Pechacek, DNP, RN, CENP, Clinical Professor at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Pechacek has served as a professional nurse in a variety of settings for forty years. Her practice career was spent as a general staff nurse, nurse leader, manager and nurse executive. In 2013, she accepted a faculty position at the University of Minnesota, School of Nursing, teaching in the Health, Innovation and leadership track in the Doctorate of Nursing program (DNP). In 2015, she assumed overall leadership for the DNP program, the largest hybrid - DNP program in the nation with over 300 full time students in eleven specialties. Her teaching responsibilities have focused on leadership, quality, business and global studies. Her scholarship is dedicated to interprofessional practice and the connection to quality patient outcomes. Most recently Dr. Pechacek was named as the Senior Quality Nurse Scholar and faculty member for the Veterans Administration Quality Scholars (VAQS) Fellowship program. She also serves on multiple boards in the community, as a University committee member and is actively raising two teenagers on her Century farm in Rural Minnesota.