Featuring LeAnn Thieman
Speaker, Author, Nurse,
Founder and President of SelfCare for HealthCare
March 2024
LeAnn Thieman is a well known speaker, author, nurse, and Founder and President of SelfCare for Healthcare. She is considered an accomplished woman who inspires many and equips individuals in varied fields to be prepared for their personal and professional “war zones.”
These “war zones” LeAnn references when she speaks heralds back to a pivotal experience in her own life, serving in the Vietnam Orphan Airlift in 1975. Also referred to as Operation Babylift, LeAnn was as she says “accidentally” caught up in this operation which took place during the fall of Saigon to Communists. As a volunteer for Friends of Vietnam in 1975, LeAnn had helped raise money and supplies for the war orphans. In April she had agreed to travel to Saigon to escort six babies to their adoptive homes in the United States. When she arrived in Vietnam, greeted by bombs, she was told that President Ford had approved “Operation Babylift” which meant that she would be helping to rescue three-hundred babies, not just six.
After her adventure in the war zone of Vietnam, her story was featured in Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul and she soon became one of Chicken Soup’s most consistent writers. In addition to her experience globally, LeAnn served as a Nurse for over 30 years which also equipped her to speak into others lives through her writing.
In addition to being a prolific author, LeAnn is also a sought after speaker. She is among less than ten percent of expert speakers globally who have earned the Certified Speaking Professional designation. Additionally, in August of 2008, she was inducted into the National Speakers Association Speakers Hall of Fame. She inspires audiences to balance their lives, live priorities, and make a difference in the world. Although she has a background in healthcare, her audience ranges from medical professionals, cattlemen, contractors, and corporations. In each setting, LeAnn desires to inspire her audience to live differently after hearing from her.
LeAnn is also the Founder and President of SelfCare for HealthCare which provides healthcare professionals with self care resources to allow them to feel fulfilled in a health work environment and as a result this leads to an increase in nurse and medical care retention.
Although her global experience shaped her life, LeAnn believes it was her rural beginnings that shaped her the most. She was raised as one of eight children on a farm in Iowa which engrained honorable, faith-filled living that resulted in the principles and priorities she follows in her life today.
In all of her work, LeAnn has utilized her personal experience to encourage and inspire others that God uses ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things.