Leddys Lead the Way with SDSU Metro Center Match

Like most parents, Mark ‘86/M.S. ’87 and Susan (Nef) ‘87/M.S. ’93 Leddy care that their children feel happy and fulfilled in their careers.

So, when their oldest called to say her career in business was not something she could see herself doing the rest of her life, Susan’s heart was warmed by what their daughter, Lauren, said next:

“Mom, I think I need to go back to school and go into healthcare, because, at the end of the day, I want to make a difference for people.” 

“When Lauren said this, I said, ‘I understand. That is my love language, too,’” shared Susan, who began her healthcare career at 16 when she worked for the Whetstone Valley Nursing Home in her hometown of Milbank, South Dakota. 

“Nursing gave me the ability to interact with families and build relationships – especially working in our small community. My interaction was not limited to who I was taking care of in that moment, because I got to care for and really get to know entire families in our community,” said Susan, who graduated from SDSU’s nursing program twice: first as a registered nurse, then as a nurse practitioner. 

“SDSU prepared me well,” Susan said. “I passed my boards and stepped right into working for a large metro hospital in Minneapolis, and I don’t remember having one moment of anxiety or feeling inadequately prepared.”

Although she began her career working in metro hospitals in Minneapolis and Connecticut, Susan spent most of her career caring for individuals in her rural hometown.

“There were a lot of ‘chuckle moments’ when patients would say, ‘Oh you were a nursing assistant taking care of my dad or grandpa in the nursing home the last time I saw you,’ and now I was managing their hypertension or Type 2 diabetes and giving them wellness advice,” Susan said. “Nursing, for me, turned out to be an amazing career and was absolutely fulfilling.”

Paying it forward for future generations of healthcare professionals

When asked why the couple chose to give to the SDSU Metro Center, Susan reflects on the joy and fulfillment she found in her 34 years of nursing. Her career opened her eyes to the extreme need for healthcare professionals, especially in rural towns like Milbank.

When the Leddys learned about SDSU’s plans to expand and unify their health sciences programming in Sioux Falls, the couple donated $1 million in matching funds to help make the SDSU Metro Center a reality. The Leddys used gifts of stock to fuel the match.

“Healthcare needs workers,” said Susan, referencing the statistic that nearly two-thirds of South Dakota communities face a shortage of healthcare professionals. “The answer is to educate as many students as possible. Now, I would love every student to have the traditional campus experience we had on SDSU’s Brookings campus – living in the dorm, going to football and basketball games, showing cattle at Little I – but this is not what all students want. Some students want to live in the city. The Metro Center meets students where they are.” 

“The Metro Center is a brilliant idea,” Mark added. “It provides one location for all students pursuing degrees in nursing, pharmacy, and other areas of healthcare to learn, study, and conduct research.”

The SDSU Metro Center is centrally located in the heart of Sioux Falls. Its location is strategically close to all three of the city’s major healthcare facilities: Avera Health, Sanford Health, and the VA Medical Center. This is important, because SDSU partners with the hospitals to provide students with hands-on training. Prior to the Metro Center, which has a grand opening scheduled for September 17, 2026, Jackrabbit students interested in healthcare often took classes in multiple locations throughout Sioux Falls.

“From my experience, it is important to bring students who share similar focus and study habits together. It further strengthens the SDSU nursing and allied health sciences programs because students are not isolated,” Susan said. “The Metro Center encourages collaboration between disciplines. It prepares them for the real world, where nurses interact with pharmacists to help their patients.”

Place matters

The SDSU Metro Center provides SDSU healthcare students studying in Sioux Falls with a place to call home – and to Mark and Susan, place matters. 

For the Leddys, Milbank is that place. The couple’s roots run deep in the rural community just 70 miles north of Brookings.

Mark grew up on a fourth-generation family farm there, and Susan’s grandpa, Alfred Nef, and his friend, Alfred Gonzenbach, were the founders of the community’s largest employer, Valley Queen. Today, Valley Queen is a global dairy manufacturer. 

An opportunity for Mark to join the family business in 1990 was just the excuse the couple was seeking so that they could return home from the east coast to raise their family.

“When our first child was born, we knew we did not want to stay away from our families, and moving back to the Midwest became our goal,” Susan said. 

Like Susan, Mark said SDSU gave him the education he needed to build a fulfilling career. 

“I credit whatever success I’ve had in my career to SDSU,” Mark said. 

Though he began college studying animal science, it was not an animal nutrition class that captured his attention but rather a requisite economics class. 

“I had ‘rock-a-nomics,’ an economics class taught by Rocky Gilbert, and there was just something about that class that sparked my interest,” Mark said.

Once he found something to hold his interest in his education, Mark became invested and went on to receive a Master of Economics degree. 

He was working for The Travelers Insurance Company at corporate headquarters in Hartford, CT, when Susan’s dad, Rudy, asked if he would be interested in working for Valley Queen. 

“They wanted to keep the business in the family, so they wanted to build the management team, and there was a position for a milk procurement manager. Honestly, until this opportunity, I had not stepped foot in the cheese plant,” explained Mark, who put what he learned about economics at SDSU to work, expanding the company from 50 employees operating five days a week, to 400 employees operating 24/7. 

Heart for their hometown 

When Mark retired as Valley Queen CEO, the couple was ready for their next endeavor – investing in the community of Milbank. 

“We really feel blessed with our life and education and the ability to give back,” Mark said. “We recognized the importance of Valley Queen on the community of Milbank but also the importance of people being willing to move here.”

“Our family has a legacy of giving back,” Susan added. 

The couple built a hotel, invested in the renovation of nine Main Street properties, opened a coffee shop in a historic bank building, and they are working on getting a community daycare center.

“Anyone can invest money in the stock market. To me, the dollars we have invested in Main Street – I can really see the impact of those,” Mark explained.

He added that his and Susan’s investment in the SDSU Metro Center is also connected to a thriving Milbank – and other rural communities across South Dakota.

“Healthcare is essential to everyone, so it is important to provide access and to have professionals ready to do the work,” Mark said. “Right now, in Milbank, many of the nurses who work in our community are SDSU grads, and the same is true for our pharmacists. You know, in many cases, they are also graduates of Milbank High School. They go to SDSU, either the pharmacy school or the nursing school, and then find their way back to Millbank. We see the Metro Center as becoming part of their journey in the future.”

_{Written by Lura Roti}