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News & Events
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Longtime Advocates & Supporters Retire from Midwest CareCenter Board
March 2009
The retirement of Katherine Nicklin and Mike Beemer
from the Midwest CareCenter Board of Directors marks a
significant transition. Each has been part of the fabric of
the organization since it was founded, and their tenures
have been interwoven.
Katherine Nicklin
A year or two after Katherine and her family moved
to the area in 1976, she learned of an organization being formed to provide hospice services. This was
particularly poignant because her brother had died
two years prior without the benefit of hospice.
Subsequently, Katherine had read works by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, author of the transformative On Death
and Dying, and became aware that end-of-life care
could be better than what her brother had experienced.
So she “dragged” her husband, Oliver, to an early
meeting, and because of his expertise in the financial
field, he was recruited to serve on the first Midwest CareCenter
Board of Directors.
With three young children at the time, Katherine’s involvement was more peripheral until she joined the Midwest CareCenter Service Board—coincidently headed by Mike’s wife, Diane, when it was formed in 1987. Katherine became president of that friend- and
fundraising board in the late 1990s, serving also as
liaison to the Board of Directors during her tenure.
She was then recruited to stay on the Board, where her
training and background as a psychologist provided
valuable perspective to Board deliberations.
Among other responsibilities over ten years, Katherine served as president and led the Board through a transition process that saw the retirement of Dorothy Pitner Healy, who had been president and CEO for 17 years.
Mike Beemer
Mike first learned of Midwest CareCenter in 1982 at a dinner
party when Jackie Holland, a Midwest CareCenter volunteer to
this day, talked enthusiastically to her guests about a new organization she had helped start.
This resonated with Mike. As an attorney, he had worked with many individuals on estate matters and had seen families suffer because of futile, life-prolonging treatment that made life very difficult for the patient as well as the family. He believed that it was much better to be able to die at home…with dignity and support.
Shortly after that dinner party, Mike joined the Board,
which was then chaired by Oliver Nicklin! Mike
commented, “I’ve been on the Board and the Finance
Committee for a long time…and never accepted the
position of chairman because I wanted to concentrate
on fundraising.”
He was president of the Hospice Foundation Board, which raised funds to build out space on the campus of Skokie Hospital (the former Rush North Shore Medical Center) for our Inpatient Hospice Unit in the late 1990s. In addition, Mike served on the Philanthropy Committee and co-chaired the recent Midwest CareCenter Campaign to raise more than $17 million to build our Glenview facility and support an endowed chair.
Katherine and Mike concur that being part of an
organization which not only provides wonderful care but
also is managed as a business and shares knowledge has been very gratifying.
Katherine mentioned that “I have great satisfaction in being part of a well-run organization, with people who have a lot of passion for what they do.”
Mike added, “One thing that has really been important
to me is that it is a two-fold organization—providing
compassionate, expert care in our local community and
sharing how to do that on a regional and national basis.
… Midwest CareCenter is helping to change the course of
healthcare in this country.”
They will be greatly missed, and we wish them both
Godspeed in their new endeavors..
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