Tonya Darner

MARQUETTE — Tonya Darner has been named the permanent CEO of UP Health System-Marquette, a Duke LifePoint hospital.

Darner has been the hospital’s interim CEO since early November and chief operating officer since 2021.

She served in the U.S. Air Force for 20 years, eventually becoming the 4th medical operations squadron superintendent in 2007.

After retiring from the military, Darner had several roles at UPHS-Marquette, including senior director of neurosciences, imaging, and on-call specialists service lines, and director of regional operations for neurosciences, occupational medicine, behavioral health, pediatric specialty clinics, and radiology service lines.

Before returning to Marquette, Darner was the COO for Aspirus Wausau Hospital in Wisconsin.

Darner earned a bachelor’s degree in human resource management from Mount Olive College in Mount Olive, NC, and a master’s degree in business administration from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. She and her husband, Sean, moved to Marquette in 2011 after they first visited the Upper Peninsula in the early 1990s.