Page 34 - BusinessWest July 7, 2025

Dave DesLauriers
This Veteran Nurse Seeks a ‘Bridge’ into Emergency Management
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
[email protected]
For Dave DesLauriers, like many oth-
ers in the nursing profession, this is
a second — or third — career.
His first two were in the broad realm
of social work, helping individuals with
issues ranging from housing and employ-
ment to domestic violence and substance
abuse, in settings that included a home-
less shelter and a Planned Parenthood
office.
The shift to nursing came about, in
part, due to chance and circumstance
while he was looking to pursue a mas-
ter’s degree in social work.
“I’m a person who believes that every-
thing happens for a reason,” he said.
“I was really struggling to get things
matched up for the path to the master’s
in social work, and I eventually decided
to go over to Mount St. Mary’s College
— I was living in New York at the time —
and talk about their nursing program.”
He did just that, and within an hour,
one of the sisters at the school had his
plan mapped out for him. One of his first
professors there, he said, was a “strict,
matter-of-fact educator” who reminded
him a lot of his mother, who worked as a
nurse at Holyoke Hospital (now Holyoke
Medical Center) for many years.
“I knew exactly at that moment that I
was in the right place,” said DesLauriers,
whose third career has been anything
but static. Indeed, it has involved several
time zones — with stints in New York,
Hawaii, and then the Bay State — as well
as settings, from Vassar Brothers Medi-
cal Center to Mercy Medical Center to
the Massachusetts Veterans Home at
Holyoke, and responsibilities, from emer-
gency room nurse to his current role as
RN coordinator for admissions at the Vet-
erans Home.
And now, with a master’s degree in
emergency management from the Mas-
sachusetts Maritime Academy (MMA),
which he earned online nights and week-
ends, the door is open to new opportuni-
ties in that intriguing field.
Indeed, while the current political
“I would like to
bridge my nursing
experience on
the front lines
back into my
life, and I would
love to assist
with emergency
management and
be on the front
lines of disaster
response, and
handle emergency
management from
the perspective of
a nurse.”
DesLauriers
Continued on page 35 >>
Kara Lombardi
As Assistant Nurse Manager, Her Role Is to Be a Support Person
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
[email protected]
“I like teaching —
that’s why I got
my degree in that
as well — and I
like having the
opportunity to
teach nurses to
be the best they
can be, give them
confidence, and
show them what
they can achieve in
their career.”
Kara Lombardi traces her interest in
healthcare, and the nursing profes-
sion, to her father’s bladder cancer
diagnosis and subsequent visits to the
hospital.
“It was a pretty late stage, so he was
going back and forth to Boston with my
mom,” she recalled, noting that she was
just 15 at the time. “Obviously, it was a
hard time for everyone, especially him,
and when I would go visit, I would notice
that, whenever the nurses came in, he
was able to smile and joke with them;
they brightened up his day.
“He always talked about how great
and wonderful the nurses were, how
they lifted his spirits when he was in the
hospital,” she went on. “So they made
me realize that’s what I wanted to do for
people — I wanted to help them through
the toughest days that they were going
through.”
Today, several years after graduating
from the Elms College nursing program,
working in a few different settings, earn-
ing a master’s degree in nursing educa-
tion through an online program, and
rising in the ranks to assistant nurse
manager of the med-surg unit at Mercy
Medical Center, Lombardi gets to do
some of that.
But mostly, she’s managing and
training others as they enter the profes-
sion, gain experience, and help patients
through their toughest days.
It’s a job, one she’s been in for six
years now, that comes with many
rewards and opportunities for her to
continue learning and growing as a man-
ager and educator; in fact, she teaches
the med-surg clinical for Westfield State
University.
Lombardi talked about her role at
length with BusinessWest, touching on
the many aspects of this work that she
enjoys.
“We round on the patients and make
sure they’re having good experiences,”
she said while giving a quick job descrip-
tion. “And we’re always available to help
the nurses on the floor with whatever
they need. And with the new grads, we’ll
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JULY 7, 2025
Lombardi
Continued on page 36 >>
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