At the request of Mayo Clinic’s board of trustees, Dr. John Noseworthy will stay on as president and CEO of the Rochester institution until the end of the year, allowing time for a search committee to elect a new leader in the coming months.

Noseworthy, a 28-year veteran of Mayo Clinic, took over as its top executive in November 2009. The health system, which last year treated 1.3 million patients from every state and dozens of countries overseas, has grown to be (during Noseworthy’s near-decade-long tenure) Minnesota’s largest employer with a staff of 41,620 workers.

Mayo’s Destination Medical Center project, however, may go down as one of Noseworthy’s greatest accomplishments, and one that could likely double the organization’s headcount over the next two decades. The $6 billion effort is already the largest public-private economic initiative in state history and is expected to revitalize Rochester with new facilities, infrastructure and a transit system all with the ultimate goal of transforming the city into America’s health care capital.

For these reasons and more, Twin Cities Business named Noseworthy its Person of the Year in 2014.

“[Noseworthy] has been a strong, servant leader and a highly visible thought leader for Mayo Clinic, focused on furthering Mayo’s values and commitment to patients,” said Samuel Di Piazza, chair of Mayo’s board of trustees, in a statement.

“During his tenure as CEO,” Di Piazza added, “Dr. Noseworthy led Mayo Clinic to focus on key priorities, significantly increase its external visibility and achieve designation as the No. 1 hospital in the nation by U.S. News and World Report in 2016 and 2017.”

Dating back to when the Mayo brothers founded Mayo Clinic in 1889, the organization’s president and CEO have typically served a term ranging between eight and 10 years, Mayo Clinic said in its release. Yet, with Noseworthy, the offer to stay on longer had been extended.

“We would have welcomed Dr. Noseworthy serving even longer, but we respect his personal decision to retire and are confident in the strong pool of succession candidates,’ Di Piazza said.

Mayo Clinic plans to announce a search committee soon, it said, to pick its new leader. The organization currently expects to have a person selected by early fall, allowing Noseworthy to help transition his successor into their role before his official retirement on December 31, 2018.

“I am honored that the Board of Trustees asked me to serve another year, through the end of 2018,” Noseworthy said in prepared remarks. “2017 was an extraordinary year for Mayo Clinic, and I look forward to working with our leadership team throughout 2018 to continue to strengthen Mayo Clinic and advance our humanitarian mission.”