— Audio Transcript —

My name is Gregory Frodge. I am married with five children. I went through the ADN program and the BSN program here at Galen.

You’ve faced some challenges in your life…

Roughly 2009, 2010 I had lost my job. It was right in the middle of the recession that I went from living in a nice place, having a nice car, having money in savings to having no savings, no apartment, and living in my car to eventually not living in a car at all and being homeless for a short time. Certainly, I had support systems from here and back home. About seven years ago I came back home for Thanksgiving just to be with the family and that’s when my wife came into the picture.

When did things start to look up?

The turning point, I remember my wife and I were just laying in bed one night and she looks over at me and she was like, “What would you like to do in your life that you never had a chance to do?” I thought for a second and I remember saying, “I want to go to nursing school.”

On a visit to Louisville, life gave you a sign…

Coming up the 71 I looked to the left and I see Galen College of Nursing sign and I was like, “I’d never seen a college of nursing.” I’ve always seen colleges, like other colleges here in the community, that have nursing programs, but nothing dedicated to just nursing and my wife was like, “Well, while I’m at work why don’t you go down there and talk to them and see,” so I came here to Galen.

What was the Galen ADN program like?

When you come in you’re immediately immersed into the world of nursing. This college is for nurses, by nurses. I just had a really good experience here. When things would get hard my teachers, they were human. They would understand it just wasn’t about filling in the right answers to a test. A few teachers in particular would always talk to me in future tense like, “So, when you pass here what are you going to do?” I always felt like you belong here and that we’ll do whatever we can so that you are successful.

Final thoughts?

It’s so cliché, but looking at that lantern, that beacon light on that sign really pointed my way to my future, if I knew then what I knew now looking at that sign it had so much more symbolism to me. There’s a lot of times that I have looked back, even on my career, and felt how lucky I was to have chosen this place in particular. Moving forward looks much brighter than, certainly, where we thought we would end up seven years ago.