40 Under 40: Gretchen Youngren
Gretchen Youngren
Gretchen Youngren is the chief development and communications officer for Samaritan Hospital in Moses Lake as well as the executive director of the Samaritan Healthcare Foundation.
A graduate of Washington State and Gonzaga universities, Youngren applies her education and experience to ensure operational success for the hospital and its foundation. Accomplishments include an education campaign to ensure hospital district voters had the knowledge they needed to vote on a bond measure to build the new hospital that will serve those in and around Moses Lake for years to come.
To support the efforts of the Samaritan Healthcare Foundation, Youngren is one of the key organizers for the foundation’s Bourbon and Bowties event which raised about $385,000 this past April to support operations and improvements at the hospital in Moses Lake. In this instance, the money is all going to support construction efforts for the new hospital.
Prior to joining the staff at Samaritan Healthcare, she worked at the Pullman Regional Hospital as a development intern and was a territory manager for Vitalant - Northwest – a blood bank services organization.
Youngren also serves on the Adams County Leadership Council for the Innovia Foundation.
Youngren has been married to her husband, Ian, since 2014 and they have three children together. Ian is a fourth-generation farmer in Adams County, near Lind.
Serving in her small town is important to Youngren, she said. She’s coached basketball and soccer for her children. She also helped raise more than $3,000 to form a parent-teacher organization in Lind to support children in the community. The PTO has a program to help students buy supplies and clothing for school and has a Christmas store that lets young students in Lind-Ritzville schools give gifts to their families that otherwise would have been unable to.
“It’s a very underprivileged area, and we feel strongly – Ian and I do – that we want to give back to the community that’s given so much to us over the years,” Youngren said.