Memorial Health System’s (MHS) January Featured Employee of the Month is Renauda Rutz, Team Lead of Environmental Services, for Memorial Health System.
Renauda has worked for MHS for 14 years this coming June. She began working as a part-time employee for several years while she had her own cleaning business, M&R’s Helping Hands. Renauda cleaned 15 houses a month and had, and still does have, a contract with Abilene Machine to handle their cleaning needs. She was eventually asked to come on full-time at MHS, and she gave up the houses she cleaned and became the housekeeper for Med Surg (InPatient Unit) for approximately 12 years. Renauda then applied for the Team Lead position in Environmental Services, and has been in that position for over one and a half years. “Being the Lead, I love to be able to make changes to better our staff and to make things run more efficiently,” said Renauda. “I do miss being on the floor and interacting with our patients, but I do try to still help on the floor to keep up with how things are going,” she continued. Her main job responsibilities, as Team Lead, include staffing schedules, making sure all positions are running smoothly, and filling in wherever needed.
Renauda grew up in Welland, Ontario, Canada. It is well-known for the canal locks that ships pass through in between the Great Lakes and the canals. These ships bring supplies and goods to different loading and unloading shipyards. While in Canada, Renauda had her own food business. “I owned three cafeterias and had a catering business – I was a very busy woman in those days. I was very successful and I thrived on the crazy schedules with weddings, banquets, etc. on the weekends and full-time hours for my cafeterias, which two of those were in large facilities and one in a government building,” she said. “I have been very fortunate and successful all of my career life, considering that I really have no formal education past grade 12. My grandma told me, from when I was a young girl, if you want something in life, and you can’t afford it, get another job. So when my life needed more things, I just created more work,” Renauda continued.
She moved to Kansas almost 20 years ago from Canada and married Mike Rutz. He had three grown children at the time and Renauda had two grown children, and now together they have 10 grandchildren. “Even through doing all of this work, I live for my summers when we travel to Canada to take my daughter and my grandchildren camping for a week or more to a campground we have been going to since I was a little girl,” stated Renauda.
Her, and husband Mike’s, goal is to be moving to Port Huron, Michigan in the summer of 2024. “I hope to work in one of the McLaren hospitals there and Mike has been certified for teaching there as well. This way, we will be close to the Port Huron Blue Water Bridge which connects to Canada, and I will be only one hour and 20 minutes from my daughter…YEAH!” Renauda exclaimed with a smile.
When she isn’t working, Renauda enjoys cooking for her family, watching old movies with Mike, and she LOVES camping with her daughter and grandchildren on the Canadian side of her family.
The MHS Featured Employee of the Month has been selected by the Employer of Choice Council from the list of On the Spot Award winners received in the previous month. On the Spot awards are given to employees who show up to work, work hard every day, and go above and beyond their normal job duties. This monthly feature is designed to help you get to know the faces that make MHS a great place.
