Staff: Lisa Ormond

• Benjamin Abel

• Faculty/Staff
• Featured Story
• Health Sciences
• News
• Nursing
• Pirate Profile

In most organizations, there is always that one person who holds things together. For the College of Nursing, that person is Lisa Ormond.

Ormond is from Snow Hill, which is 20 minutes from everywhere, she said. She has one sister, 10 years her junior, who became her charge and helped her develop a sense of responsibility that would serve her well after graduating from high school.

"At 16, when I got my driver's license, I carried a 6-year-old to kindergarten every morning because my mom and dad had to be to work by 7," Ormond said. "I got my sister up, got her to school and had to be back in the car line to pick her back up."

After high school, she went right to work at the DuPont plant in Kinston, which offered college students a flexible schedule to take classes. Her parents supported her decision but were adamant that she make her own way.

In 1988, she graduated from Pitt Community College with a degree in accounting and was referred for a temporary job at ECU.

"I came three weeks after I graduated; I've been here since I was 21 years old," Ormond said. "I've grown up here at ECU."

Her first job put her in the Spilman building, which she said was then known as the White House of the campus. She started in the payroll office - and has been in financial services ever since - but moved to the College of Nursing five years later.

The time at Spilman grounded her in the fundamentals of finance and reinforced an important lesson she learned on the job: you don't mess with a person's family or their money. You must get the money right.

In her time, the College of Nursing has moved to the health sciences campus, had several deans and has grown "a whole lot," Ormond said, but she's never once looked for another job.

Ormond said past College of Nursing deans like Drs. Phyllis Horns and Sylvia Brown were instrumental in her professional development. Horns opened the door for her to join the college and Brown "always encouraged me, supported me and allowed me to be a part of critical decisions."

She reserves her greatest praise for a former supervisor, colleague and dear friend, John Core.

"John taught me so much about reality, outlooks on life and strategies to survive," Ormond said. "He allowed me the opportunity to learn leadership and showed me the true meaning of what leadership is both professionally and personally."

Her financial expertise has increasingly been key to the quality of the education that Pirate nurses receive. The galloping pace of advances in healthcare means money to pay for simulators and high-tech medical equipment are important ingredients in how nurses are trained. And with about 180 faculty members on staff teaching more than 1,500 students, keeping track of funding is critical.

"This school gives a sense of pride to be a part of. I'm not an academics person, but we have a role to play. We find the money to empower the faculty," Ormond said.

In recent years, Ormond's ability to calmly step up and take outside responsibility has been crucial. Between the normal turnover in the business office she is a part of, unexpected long-term illnesses of co-workers and substantial growth at the College of Nursing, she has been an anchor of stability, picking up responsibilities outside of her normal workload.

"Human resources takes my whole day right now," Ormond said.

Ormond is an active member of the ECU Staff Senate, severing as the chair of various committees, executive committee member and chair of the Senate. That participation translated to a role with the UNC Staff Assembly, where she worked with colleagues at all of the UNC System universities.

I was able to serve on different committees, making sure each university had the voice to share their individual and unified concerns with UNC administration," Ormond said.

The office that serves as Ormond's homebase is littered with ECU athletics memorabilia. There is no bigger fan of Pirate football and baseball. She and her son have a list of college football stadiums where they dream of watching games, but they always end up back at Dowdy-Ficklen and Clark-LeClair.

"I have football season tickets, and I even have my ticket to Alabama," Ormond said of this fall's season-opening game. "I don't have season tickets to baseball. Those are hard to come by."

Ormond's son, a CPA who works between Charlotte and Washington, D.C., needles her lovingly about taking advantage of working at a world-class university: "Mom, by now you could have had a doctorate."

Getting back into the classroom is on her bucket list, she said.

"I tell him, when I retire, I think I'm going to do it," Ormond said. "The day is always waiting on you to make a decision."