Patrick Hosey has worn a lot of hats. He's been a naval officer aboard a destroyer in wartime, a tobacco storage supervisor in Macon, Ga., and a seafood production manager in Brunswick, Ga. In Augusta, he is making yet another career shift -- training to become a nurse at Medical College of Georgia in the Clinical Nurse Leader program.
Mr. Hosey, 45, was one of 10 MCG students to recently receive a $10,000 scholarship from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Careers in Nursing Scholarship, an effort that fits in well with the MCG program's goal of getting people from other professions into nursing and nursing leadership.
If anyone knows about taking on new careers, it is Mr. Hosey.
A 1987 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he served aboard the USS Moosbrugger before and during the first Persian Gulf War, intercepting ships in the Gulf of Aqaba that were carrying off goods looted from stores in Kuwait.
"The Moosbrugger alone boarded over 100 ships," Mr. Hosey said. "It was an interesting time to be out there. When Desert Storm kicked off, we were close enough to Iraq's western area that we could have taken an Exocet (anti-ship missile)."
Being away from his family, with two small children, proved to be too much of a strain, so Lt. j.g. Hosey left the Navy in 1992 and went to work for a metal works company in Illinois while earning his MBA.
He eventually found his way to the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. plant in Macon, where he says he was told during a job interview, "If you join us, you'll be joining the devil."
And in hindsight, he thinks he should have listened.
"If I had to do that over, I probably would not do that," Mr. Hosey said. "My family was young, and we needed the money. What are you going to do?"
He was eventually made a manager of a 10-acre storage facility that came with a hefty responsibility.
"We had over $150 million worth of tobacco," Mr. Hosey said. "A lot of people don't realize how much tobacco is worth."
The tobacco companies' settlement with the states' attorneys general and a merger changed fortunes for the company, and he left after about six years to work as a production manager creating frozen seafood at King & Prince Seafood in Brunswick.
And believe it or not, there are similarities between the two, he said.
"You're dealing with people, leadership problems, maintenance issues," Mr. Hosey said. "You're dealing with a lot of philosophies of manufacturing: just-in-time, lean manufacturing principles."
After that company was bought by another, he began to think about something he had always wanted to do -- nursing.
"My mother is a nurse," Mr. Hosey said. "She was an Air Force nurse, and I was always interested in nursing."
In fact, nursing runs in his immediate family as well -- his wife, Miriam, is a public health nurse and a daughter, Kimberly, is studying in Jacksonville, Fla., to become a nurse.
There is a common thread in the MCG program and some of his previous careers.
"There's always been a desire to be in a leadership role," Mr. Hosey said. And that business experience might prove valuable in the future.
"I've already seen things that I think could be done more effectively, more efficiently," he said. "We are trying to look for better outcomes and also to improve cost efficiencies."
Reach Tom Corwin at (706) 823-3213 or tom.corwin@augustachronicle.com.
PATRICK HOSEY
AGE: 45
EDUCATION: U.S. Naval Academy, MBA from Northern Illinois University
CAREER: Navy officer; Amerock Corp., Rockford, Ill.; The David J. Joseph Co., Cincinnati; Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., Macon, Ga.; King & Prince Seafood, Brunswick, Ga.; Southeastern Pathology Associates, Brunswick
FAMILY: Wife, Miriam; daughters Kimberly, Jacquline, Alyssa and Rebecca
QUOTE: "I've already seen things that I think could be done more effectively, more efficiently. We are trying to look for better outcomes and also to improve cost efficiencies."
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