Andy Hibel 0:01
Welcome to the HigherEdJobs podcast. I'm Andy Hibel, the chief operating officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.

Mike Walker 0:07
And I'm Mike Walker, producer on the HigherEdJobs podcast. Today, we're talking with Dr. Greg White. Dr. White is the director of traditional undergraduate nursing program. an associate professor at College of Saint Scholastica. He's an advanced practice registered nurse and veteran with experience in multiple roles, including prehospital flight and military medicine, emergency and critical care nursing. As well as nursing education and leadership. He is also the faculty lead for the Veteran to BS in Nursing Program, which works with cohorts of veterans and currently serving military members, to promote veteran nursing students success, individualized advising and counseling. and recognition of existing leadership and clinical skills. Throughout their admission and progress in the traditional undergraduate nursing program.

Andy Hibel 0:59
Greg, I'd like to just kind of start by asking you please tell us more about your experience as a reservist in the Air National Guard and what your service has been through it and also, a little bit about what you normally would, do as part of reservist duties.

Greg White 1:19
Yeah. So I enlisted in 2007 and I initially enlisted as an aeromedical evacuation technician, which is a fixed wing flight medic. And I was able to do that for close to six years and deployed twice in that role. That role is you essentially take a cargo plane, you push all the cargo off and we convert it into a flying hospital. So at times flying as many as 60 or more soldiers home with varying degrees of injury on some of these cargo planes I really, really enjoyed that. After about six years, I switched to be an operational medic, working more closely with the pilots, prior to commissioning as a nurse in my current unit, we work as part of domestic operations for mass casualty and CBRN, which is chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear and explosive. We're the medical package for a team that will respond if there's any of those events that happen in the States. I currently work as a nurse practitioner with that unit and I am the officer in charge of training and education.

Andy Hibel 2:23
And normally when you have a responsibility for the reserves, what are some of the other things that you've more traditionally done as part of this role?

Greg White 2:33
A lot of it is regular training for our medics and our nurses. I do a lot of focus on medics to get them some real world skills and application. Outside of that we train really heavily with the army. We're a joint unit to train and how to respond to these events. So we have regular weeklong exercises outside of Drill as well. A normal day for Drill is more focused on preparation and making sure other people are prepared to deploy or to work in these roles, even if their civilian experience isn't exactly compatible. We have a lot of medics who and the outside world. For a while we had a medic who is excellent, who is a distiller. He ran a distillery. His medic skills are excellent because he trained hard. And so we want to work to make sure that even if medics aren't working actively in these roles, that they have the training to be successful.

Andy Hibel 3:24
And just to kind of be clear, because you talked about this. You're with the Air National Guard. You're not part of the Air Force or the Army or what people would traditionally think as a branch the military. How does the Air National Guard fit into structure the overall U.S. military?

Greg White 3:41
So there's a lot of confusion between what the Guard and the Reserve is. And the real answer is they're very close. So the Reserve for Army Air Force Marine Corps and Navy all services have a reserve. They work to augment active duty forces and to be a ready reserve of forces so they can step in and they can fill in if active duty has to leave their post in order to deploy or they can deploy instead of the active duty. National Guard is very, very similar when we're active duty, we are considered active duty, Air Force or Army, depending on where you are. Our training is exactly the same. We go to all of the same schools. We have the same training and expectations as the difference between the Reserve and the National Guard is that the National Guard also has a state mission. So if you've had flooding or natural disasters or during the civil unrest, the governor was able to call the National Guard in order to help either help people or secure an area. And so we are a service that can actually be used by the governor in more civilian operations as well, whereas the Reserve and active duty aren't able to do that.

Andy Hibel 4:50
On You live in Minnesota. You're part of the Minnesota National Guard. During the civil unrest Minnesota in 2020 were you called in there. And if so, did they have you doing a situation like that?

Greg White 5:04
I'd be willing to bet about 95% of the entire Minnesota National Guard. And we are a very, very large force. I was called up during the civil unrest. My role was much more administrative in that I was in charge of all of the COVID testing when people came out. So when people went home doing rapid COVID testing, coordinating with Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to ensure that we were sending people home clear of COVID because there were no masks in that scenario. And that was kind of during the height of COVID as well. So I, I definitely did not do anything to write home about, but I got to take a kind of a large chunk, at least, of the Air Force side and making sure people were safe to be home.

Andy Hibel 5:46
And how long were you deployed in that role?

Greg White 5:48
It was a little over a week

Andy Hibel 5:49
Over a week. Is that pretty traditional for the work they're having you do?

Greg White 5:54
So that was very unique. During COVID, I was actually activated for about two and a half months working with the long term care facilities to provide nursing assistance or we we use a lot of Army National Guard personnel, trained them to be nursing assistants in a temporary way in order to offset and go to these homes and make sure that if they had a bunch of staff that was ill or had COVID or they were getting hit especially hard by COVID, that we could provide manpower for them. So I was on one of those teams for a short while, and then after that I would be part of the advance team. So we'd go to these facilities, we'd assess their need, and then we'd provide manpower if they needed it, in order to make sure that people again could be safe and that people weren't more hurt by COVID then they could be.

Andy Hibel 6:42
Is that the only time you've been called up into active duty?

Greg White 6:45
I've been deployed. All. In all, I have close to 36 if not more months of active duty service.

Andy Hibel 6:52
Oh, wow.

Greg White 6:54
Whenever you're called up, you are active duty. And that includes training, that includes deployments, So you are a reserve component of the Air Force. So when I as Captain White if I get activated. I'm Captain White to anybody, active duty, anybody in reserve as well. And so I am able to step into the role and be active duty. The difference is I get to go home and I get to have my own career as well.

Andy Hibel 7:16
Speaking of which, I know you're not a distiller, but I know quite a bit about your career, but I want to make sure that we share here. In your career you said you became a medic in 2007 when you enlisted. Were you on the path to nursing school at that point or did nursing school come after that?

Greg White 7:36
Absolute not. I went to college and I played rugby and I was in a fraternity and I had a great time. And then, I dropped out of college because that is what one does when you do those other two things more than go to class. And I came home to Duluth, Minnesota, where I actually currently live, and I went to school to be a firefighter because I was 21, and that sounded like it was amazing and I really enjoyed that time. But during my firefighter training, I actually I was able to take an EMT course and start doing clinicals as an EMT, and something clicked medicine is something that I liked, and working with patients is something I really enjoyed. So then I started working on an ambulance and then I joined the Air Force. It wasn't until I was actually in the Air Force working on teams with nurses that nursing even became something that was on my radar. So yeah, I tell nursing students when I work with them now that it's okay to not know what you want. And that I took every left turn to get where I'm at because all of that kind of came later because I had the ability or the fortune to just be in a situation where I found something I loved.

Andy Hibel 8:44
That's awesome. So seeing that you did not take that experience and then become a distiller, although I would say there's a lot of us who would say that sounds like a pretty cool profession.

Greg White 8:56
Skaalven Distillery in Brooklyn Park. If you ever get out there? Skaalven S.K.A.A.L.V.E.N.

Andy Hibel 9:04
In Brooklyn... Minnesota.

where once you started then pursuing a career after having your degree, where did you go from there?

Greg White 9:14
So I actually went and I went to a school is now called Northland Technical College and got my two year RN and then started working as an ER nurse. I had a deployment in the middle of nursing school on a deployment immediately after nursing school. so coming back is kind of an easy fit for me to go be an ER nurse. started doing that and working on my bachelor's at the same time and ended up working critical care at another center for several years before starting my master's to become a nurse practitioner. I finished my doctorate later while I was already teaching.

Andy Hibel 9:50
Oh wow. That's pretty amazing. And how did you transition? Because you mentioned teaching. How did you transition from being a practitioner in the field to being member of a faculty teaching this

Greg White 10:06
By accident. I had been teaching EMTs for the Air National Guard, teaching Refreshers and teaching regular courses, So I knew I enjoyed teaching. But when I was almost done with my master's degree. I was working night shifts in the hospital and I was helping out with the rugby team here at Scholastica, where I currently teach And after a night shift in a morning practice, I was tired and thinking about, you know, I really do enjoy teaching. So I went to the main offices and asked if they had any adjunct opportunities And it turned out for the last year they had been trying to recruit faculty to teach in their Veteran to BSN nursing program who had to graduate prepared veteran and then willing to leave the bedside to teach. And so I was looking for an adjunct opportunity and left with a full time offer. And since then I still practice as a nurse practitioner and I had a debate in the very beginning, if that's where I wanted to be full time. But I fell in love with teaching more so than I had before, and decided to use those skills to be here. The main reason I decided to do it is when I was in nursing school, my first time I had been a flight medic, I had deployed. I knew some things and I knew how to do things well, but I really wanted to know why we were doing things and ask kind of that next question. And I had feedback from a faculty who was my main faculty that I wasn't acting enough like a nursing student. And what I had learned in the military didn't matter. It didn't apply here. And that was a really eye opening and a really kind of a tough experience for me at the time. And when I was given the opportunity to build something, build a veteran program here at Scholastica, I just thought of that moment and that I could potentially be the guy that make sure nobody here ever had that experience.

Andy Hibel 11:55
Wow. reflecting on that just a little bit from a career perspective, had somebody on the podcast recently talking about impostor feelings, but it's really hard when those imposter feelings are being fueled by folks who should be shepherds of what direction you want to go with your career. And it shows a lot of self direction to want to undo what that is. I think anybody who's trying to learn and better themselves, their education should be given somebody who's trying to pull on the same side of the rope as them and not pull against them. So that that's a wonderful reason to want to transition more into teaching. How long have you now been doing kind of the three careers path that you're pursuing the practitioner field, academic teaching field, as well as the Air National Guard?

Greg White 12:49
I've been in the Air National Guard for 17 years. I've been teaching and practicing as a nurse practitioner for eight And I've been the program director here for the last. This is my third year now. So we're a large program with a large faculty group. And so, I teach less, but I get to build more, which is great.

Mike Walker 13:08
For more than 80 years, Stars and Stripes has been with you on the front lines, reporting the news and stories impacting the military community. From breaking news to providing vital resources for education services, transitioning from military life and financial guides. We will continue to be with you wherever you are. Stay up to date with the number one independent source for military news at Stripes.com.

Andy Hibel 13:32
And how do you think that the teaching is informed your experience with the roles you serve for the Air National Guard?

Greg White 13:40
I think that everything I'm doing has been complimentary to each other Teaching and knowing how to leverage what people know into a new context or a new direction. That's been something I learned here. The veterans we worked with, most of them aren't medics and they weren't medics. So how do you leverage the skills that they have in order to make them good nurses Their leadership skills, their team skills, and push on my medic students part of their job is to make sure everybody in their team is learning and is able to do it. They're able to do so. I think that those leadership skills have been really effective in the military and really effective when teaching members of the military. And practice has kept me relevant. I really strongly feel that students should listen to faculty because they have something to say, not because they're faculty, not because of position, and have created a really strong team here of really good nurses and nurse practitioners who have something to say. And our students respond really well because they know that we want them to be. We're telling them things that are important, not because we get paid to stand in front of an audience.

Andy Hibel 14:51
So our lives kind of came across one another right as COVID was setting in. In February of 2020, we had bumped into each other at a conference when we were looking at learning more about military connected folks and veterans and reservists. And our friendship grew over COVID and got to know each other better and better. And then last year, was able to come up to campus and spend some time on campus and spend some time with you and for those of you who are not familiar with the College of Saint Scholastica, in Duluth, Minnesota. It's a fabulous town, great college town. wonderful, what I would say, warm college experience for any student who would consider it as a school and a place to grow. Got a sense, even though I wasn't there for football Saturday, It's a lovely place. You could spend a football Saturday on a college campus in an environment where, know everybody's name and really came away with just a wonderful feeling about it and a good sense of the balance of your life. And that was about a year ago. We've kept up over the past year and few weeks ago were catching up. And you had mentioned to me and kind of the genesis of this, conversation and why were somewhat awkwardly recording what would be just a normal conversation was you're about ready to embark on a real unique experience. So if you could, why don't you start from the start. When did you leave and what did you have to do? And was your purpose in this endeavor?

Greg White 16:26
So myself and a group of four other members of the National Guard, all of them were Army National Guard, medics. We were tasked to be subject matter experts and go work with Norwegian soldiers as they train Ukrainian medics. So Ukraine medics coming off the line or just joining the service for the first time, training them to be medics in a very fast course and in order to get them out and working on the front lines and with Ukrainian war effort, the operation was called Operation Elisif, and that is based off of a Ukrainian or Kyev-en princess who married a Viking king in Norway. And so they named it Operation Elisif in order to kind of bring those two things together. But this course is going on for quite a while. Norway has been a pretty staunch NATO's ally and shares a lot of the concern that some other NATO nations have with the recent incursion of Russia, into Ukraine. So we started on week three of an already established curriculum. So the students had already gotten most of their lecture. They had re acclimated, they've had some evaluations. And we came in to look at the curriculum itself, look at what support the curriculum may need, and then work with the Ukrainian soldiers to hopefully get them ready to take care people and help people survive and come home from this war.

Andy Hibel 17:55
What length of time were you over there was of week three or.

Greg White 17:59
A little over two weeks. So we were there a week, three and four. And yeah, during that time we let a lot of practical exercises. We were able to lend some, some knowledge, particularly my area and my specialty in CBRN that chemical, biological area, and integrate ourselves with the Norwegian faculty or the Norwegian cadre in order to add our skill set and our knowledge to what was already an excellent curriculum. That was one of the biggest challenges. I think that any time somebody from the outside comes in, there is this expectation that you're there to change things, you're there to make it your own. And I think that my team did a beautiful job of working to learn what had been taught, looking to add where appropriate and working with the Norwegian soldiers and Guardsmen to provide the best possible education and experience for these soldiers.

Andy Hibel 18:55
And I guess kind of coming back to that statement specifically, do you feel like you did that?

Greg White 19:03
Yes. The evolution of the soldiers from the very first day we were there until the end. And I give a lot of credit to the Norwegians for having an excellent curriculum, went from 30 odd soldiers who were very uncomfortable and learning things and just tired. And then through a series of really in-depth practical exercises and very long days, seeing them become more confident, seeing them make decisions and seeing several of them ask the next question. And I think that's the really that's the part where I think that having some of the practical expertise of some of the folks that I was able to bring with me, you know, being able to take the time to answer the next question for those students who were advanced or those students who were understanding more, because you teach to the baseline, you teach to make sure that people are safe and they can practice and they can save some lives. But there are folks that are ready to take that next step, that will be even better if given that time to listen to that, time to ask questions. And I think that's one thing that we were able to spend a lot of time doing as well. So I think there's a lot of benefit, there's a lot of value.

Andy Hibel 20:06
And maybe kind of using that frame of reference, ask the next question is somebody who was trained as a lawyer and then practice and in planned giving for nonprofits. My biggest tool, my toolbox has always been questions, the questions that I'm able to ask and get answered that help further my knowledge. Asking that next question for somebody, particularly in this part of the world, but probably in any of the areas where you practice your trade is probably essential. but really not sure how essential it is,

Mike Walker 20:43
Join us next Time when we conclude our discussion with Dr. Greg White. Thanks for listening. We look forward to talking soon.