Multi-Generational Connections
Wade Stange
Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons and every combination of family ties are present somewhere at an organization as large as Bryan Health. The prior generations have influenced the current ones working at and interacting with Bryan today. The current generations will, in turn, influence the ones to come.
Jim and Wade Stange
The fingerprints of Jim and Wade Stange can be found all over Bryan Medical Center. Collectively, the father and son worked on architectural projects at Bryan for over 60 years.
Wade grew up in Lincoln, graduating from Lincoln Southeast and attending Iowa State University to study architecture. He graduated in 1979 and went to work at a multi-discipline firm in Kansas City. He was there for four years, working on big commercial projects and sports facilities, including renovations at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
He enjoyed his time at the firm but felt he was getting lost in a big organization. A marketing position opened at his father’s architecture firm, then known as Davis Fenton Stange Darling, and he jumped on it.
“I helped out with marketing for a few years, but my passion was really architecture,” Wade said. “I worked on some education, commercial and financial institution projects in my early years, and then they needed some help in health care.”
His dad also went to Iowa State, captaining the men’s basketball team while he studied architecture. Wade thinks this is how his dad learned to design quickly. After graduating, Jim and a classmate interviewed at Davis and Wilson, which had worked on Bryan Memorial Hospital since 1947. He stayed there for his entire career.
In 1959, Jim took a train to Rochester, New York, with Bryan Memorial president Gene Edwards on a research trip for designing a new surgical wing of the hospital. That afternoon, the University of Nebraska football team beat hated rival Oklahoma, ending the Sooners’ NCAA-record 74-game conference win streak.
My dad told me that they celebrated the win on the train ride to New York. Over the years, dad and Gene established a really good working relationship.
— Wade Stange
Jim worked on Bryan projects from the late 1950s into the 1990s, including an expansion to Bryan East Campus which added new cath labs and a four-level patient tower. He also designed the new patient tower for Lincoln General Hospital in the ‘60s.
Wade’s first collaboration with Bryan was working on the mid-1990s expansion to Bryan East Campus, with additions like Bryan Medical Plaza and Edwards Tower. His father retired right around the conclusion of that project, later serving on the Bryan Foundation Board.
Over the years, Wade worked on many projects for Bryan. In 2000, a few years after Bryan merged with Lincoln General Hospital, there was an effort to spread services across the two campuses. The firm, at this point renamed Davis Design, helped design the needed changes to the newly named Bryan West Campus. Then, in the mid-2000s, Wade’s team designed the Faulkner Tower, containing Bryan Heart and the Women’s and Children’s Tower.
In the 2010s, Wade worked on the new Bryan Independence Center and 5055 Building as well as an expansion to the Emergency Department on East Campus.
“I owe a lot of my career success to Bryan,” he said. “When I started out, I was pretty green in my knowledge of health care. Early on, the people here were so helpful in training me and helping me understand what’s necessary for designing healthcare spaces.”
Wade retired from Davis Design in 2022. He enjoys an active retirement with his wife Heidi, going to exercise classes and volunteering at Meals on Wheels and Bryan Medical Center.
Wade has other family connections to Bryan, too, as his mom was a volunteer who delivered meals and worked in the gift shop. His brother, Drew, works with Bryan in his role at NAI FMA Realty, assisting in property management for physician offices and other real estate needs.
At Bryan East Campus, you’ll find Wade volunteering as a wayfinder every week. He’s stationed near the Stange Corridor on Bryan East Campus, named for his parents. He now guides people around hallways that he and his dad helped design.
“One time, I did get lost,” he said with a smile. “It looks different on paper than it does when you’re walking.”
