Nathan Ellis

Chicago native Nathan Ellis brings an energy to events, infusing a diverse background and story telling skills to provide a unique experience.

Nathan is the founder and current Executive Director of the Deaf & Immigrant Center for Education at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has been part of HCMC for over 12 years. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he began with the Service League as a Volunteer in the Emergency Department (ED) where he used his fluent Spanish to aid a busy triage desk. He became a Nationally Certified Emergency Medical Technician and began working in the ED. Later he transferred to the Interpreter Service Department interpreting Spanish while he attended school for American Sign Language at the University of Minnesota.

Upon completion of interpreter training programs at St. Paul College and St. Catherine's University, Nathan traveled and studied in Mexico, residing for a short time in Mexico City. He volunteered at a deaf school in Mexico City until his return to the US and to HCMC. He then began working as a trilingual interpreter. He soon became the Coordinator of Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. It was then he began the utilization of Community Health Workers to service the Deaf community. He has worked in a variety of settings and his passion has led him to work with immigrant populations and the Deaf community.

His speaking events range form future workforce deployment and introduction to diversity training and sensitivity workshops. He is also a strategic planner for health care molding and is often invited to speak to discuss his creative approaches and solutions to health care model implementation and change.