After a nationwide search, Chaplaincy Health Care hired a former Tri-Citian as its CEO.

Laurel “Laurie” Jackson started with the Richland nonprofit on Feb. 21.

She most recently worked at the St. Charles Health System in Bend, Oregon, where she was the administrator of post-acute and community care.

Jackson spent her childhood in the Tri-Cities and attended Jason Lee Elementary School in Richland before her family moved to Yakima.

She replaces Gary Castillo who departed last spring. Bob Rosselli, a board member who stepped in as interim CEO, left Chaplaincy in July, and Tom Corley, a retired hospital executive, oversaw the nonprofit in his wake.

Prior to her work with St. Charles, Jackson was the senior director of Compass Care at Memorial Hospital in Yakima, where she oversaw all post-acute programs, including hospice, palliative care, home health and the bioethics committee.

During her career, she has been a certified grief recovery specialist, critical incident stress manager and an ordained Presbyterian minister.

She has served on the board for the Washington State Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and the Oregon Hospice and Palliative Care Association.

“It is my pleasure and privilege to welcome Laurie Jackson to Chaplaincy Health Care as our new CEO,” John Serle, Chaplaincy’s board chairman, said in a news release. “This is the result of a national search and a thorough review of some of the most qualified hospice executives, and of prayerful discernment by many individuals involved in the recruitment effort. I look forward to working with Laurie as we continue living out God’s call to ease suffering of body, mind and spirit during life’s most challenging moments.”