For 31 years, Jack Speed pulled on heavy boots, a fire-retardant jacket and a helmet to fight fires in Chesterfield County. Now, his work clothes are a little simpler: a white polo shirt, comfortable, navy-blue smock pants and a pair of running shoes. He’s one of many people who made a career switch to nursing, and he’s glad he did it. It wasn’t that working for the fire and EMS department was unfulfilling.

“It was a great career,” said Speed, who retired as a captain and a paramedic in 2005. “Every day was different. But when you look at the gear you’re wearing and the hoses you’re carrying, it begins to wear on you. I saw these younger guys come in, and they could do so much more.”

The transition to nursing was smooth. Speed, now 62, had watched nurses work when he brought patients into the emergency room.

“I knew if they could do it, I could,” he said, with a laugh.
He completed his studies at Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing in three years and began his career as an RN two years ago in the endoscopy department at Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital in Henrico County. And each day, he suits up in the hospital’s blue-and-white colors.

“I’m back in uniform again,” he said.

In addition to working four days a week at the hospital, Speed also is a team member of the Bon Secours Care-A-Van program, which offers free medical services to adults and children without medical insurance.

And in May, Speed – who spent three weeks in New Orleans caring for survivors of Hurricane Katrina five years ago – will travel to Haiti to provide medical care to earthquake victims.
For Speed, the late-career switch to nursing – rather than simply taking retirement – has proved to be a perfect fit. “I’m really glad that I gave myself something to do,” he said. “Doing nothing wouldn’t have suited me.”

Besides, he added, nursing has something in common with firefighting. “They both seek to do something for our fellow man – especially, those who lack the means but need the service. In nursing, the fires are just a little smaller.”

Melanie Thompson, 37, knew 14 years ago she wanted to become a nurse, but a high-paying job at Honeywell’s Hopewell facility drew her away. The call to a nursing career didn’t fade, though.

“A point came when I realized I was like a fish on dry land, and I decided to get back in the water,” she said.

She walked away from the high-paying job and entered Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing in 2007. She also enrolled in the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University. It made for long days: She attended nursing school during the day and took theology courses at night.

“God’s faithfulness, my loving husband and family, my seminary experience and my peers and instructors in nursing school were the inspiration I needed to keep going because my first semester [in nursing school] was a culture shock,” Thompson says. “It was like learning a new language. But it was well worth it, and I’d do it again.”

Thompson graduated from nursing school with honors and became a registered nurse on Feb. 9 this year, two months after Bon Secours hired her for her first nursing job. The salary doesn’t match what she made at Honeywell, but that doesn’t concern Thompson, who is also a licensed Baptist minister.
“Money isn’t everything, she said. “Just helping people and seeing their faces when you care for them and listen to them is more than money could ever do for me.”

Teresa James didn’t wait decades to make the switch to nursing. After graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University with a bachelor’s degree in communication arts and design, she worked for a couple of design companies before selling pharmaceuticals. Then James, 33, took a job in public relations. But none of the job changes proved satisfying.

“I was looking for a career that made a difference,” she said.

Then she went to a softball game.

“I was sitting in the stands, and the woman behind me was reading a textbook,” James recalled. “I asked her what she was studying, and she said, ‘nursing.’”

On the drive home, James asked her husband if he thought she would make a good nurse, and he said yes.

James did a little research and decided nursing fit her career needs. She entered the accelerated program at the VCU School of Nursing in 2006 and graduated in 2007.

She has worked as an RN in oncology at the VCU Medical Center for two years and said she appreciates how close she can feel to her patients.

“It’s really a family,” James said. “You’re there with them at the lowest point of their lives, and you get to hear their hopes and dreams and goals. They come back to visit for years after finishing treatment.”
Megan Haynie Loucks’s journey into nursing began in an unlikely place: a bookstore. She was a manager at a Barnes & Noble, but she knew she couldn’t work retail the rest of her life.

“I knew that I wanted to help people and look back and reflect that I changed other people’s lives,” said Loucks, 29. “Even if it’s in the smallest way, nurses make a difference.”

It wasn’t a quick journey. Loucks took classes part time to meet prerequisite course requirements while working at the bookstore full time. Then, with a new baby at home, she quit her job to attend John Tyler Community College’s nursing program. She passed the RN board exam in February.

As challenging as earning her nursing degree was at times, Loucks is glad she did it. “I’m a people person, so my favorite part of being a nurse is making people smile and making their day a little brighter,” she said. “I want to make them smile at least once that day while helping them.”