Joe making Rice Krispie treats with his grandchildren

Did you know that CHS’s new Chief Financial Officer, Joe Herdina, owns the Green Bay Packers?

It’s true. Joe owns the Packers—along with about 361,000 other people who have bought or been gifted shares to support the nation’s only publicly-owned, not-for-profit major league professional team. He doesn’t get dividends and can’t sell his shares. But he does get four tickets each year for the annual meeting at Lambeau Field.

Of course, he’s a huge Green Bay fan—which means his 2020 hasn’t been all bad.

East to West, West to East
Joe was born in Sioux Falls and grew up in Rapid City.

His family includes his wife, Kim; stepson Luke, a Boeing 777 pilot who lives in Anchorage; daughter Emily, who teaches high school in Sioux Falls; daughter Allison, who works at the Sanford Foundation; stepdaughter Nicole, who just started at Deloitte in Los Angeles; grandchildren Jisung, age five, Jiuen, age two, and a set of twins due in February.

After college, Joe worked in Rapid City for three years—but wound up back in Sioux Falls. He was hired by CHS Board President Dennis Stene. “He was one of the founders of the Foundation,” Joe says. “In fact, Rick [Weber] says Dennis wrote the first check for the Foundation.”

Dennis and former CHS Executive Director David Loving asked Joe to work on due diligence prior to the CHS merger with Children’s Inn, because Joe had experience with South Dakota’s Medicaid system. After serving as Vice President of Finance at the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, where he worked for 33 years, Joe joined CHS.

Running on a Mission
Joe is a lifelong runner. He says, “My oldest brother, Steve—I’m the second oldest of five—had cerebral palsy and never took a step.”

“I’ve seen running as a gift and I don’t want to waste it. I don’t want to waste the ability to get out and move.” In high school and college, he ran middle-distance track events and also ran cross country in college.

“I did scratch my marathon itch when I was 40,” he says. “I was going to do one and call it quits but I broke three hours and qualified for the Boston Marathon, so I decided I better do that, too. And then I retired from running marathons.”

Joe is drawn to nonprofit, human services organizations in part because of Steve, who lived in a Good Samaritan facility for several years. “Moving to Children’s Home Society, I can tell the mission is alive and well,” he says. 

“Everyone is doing everything they can for the good of the children, giving them a chance to just be kids, and to understand what a normal childhood is like,” says Joe. “It resonates with me to use whatever gifts I’ve been given to help the cause.”

Bitten Hard by the Travel Bug
“Dad was a gypsy,” Joe says. His father, who passed away three years ago, loved traveling and handed down that gift to Joe. One of his best trips was going to Australia with his father for two weeks. He also especially likes Rome, London, and Norway.

Joe’s children have been not just bitten by the travel bug, but devoured: “Between them, I think they’ve been to 75 countries,” he says.

When traveling becomes easier, Joe hopes to visit Czechoslovakia, where his father’s family came from, more of Europe and the seven or eight states in the U.S. that he hasn’t seen.

Joe stays busy hiking, biking, golf, reading (currently All the Light I Cannot See by Anthony Doerr), playing cribbage, and hanging out with his best friend who he’s known since they were both four years old.

And, of course, he also enjoys watching the Green Bay Packers win.