With a Family Nurse Practitioner master’s degree from Frontier Nursing University (FNU), Gary Koller, BSN, RN, MSN, FNC-P, has used his position as a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Public Health Service to embrace and pursue opportunities to follow FNU’s mission and serve the underserved. Since graduating from FNU in 2012, doors have opened for Gary that he admits he never imagined.

Working after graduation as a nurse practitioner for the Immigration Health Service Corps (IHSC), he was soon deployed over the next two years on international missions to the Netherlands, Senegal, Gabon, Cameron and Kenya, in order to assist patients with various medical complications. Assisting with a humanitarian crisis, he dealt with unaccompanied minors and families serving women and children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. In 2015, Gary had the opportunity to present at the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., with two officers that delivered care to Ebola patients in Liberia.

Within his tour of duty with IHSC, Gary was also deployed several times to various areas of the U.S. to assist with immigration health care.

Gary continued to represent as a Frontier alumnus when he began working at Health Resources and Services Administration in 2016. In the wake of the catastrophic Louisiana flood in August 2016, he was deployed to deliver care at the Federal Medical Center on the Louisiana Campus to patients needing complex care. He was also selected to serve in Baton Rouge at the LA Convention Center to give medical support to 1,000 families dislocated by the flood.

During the 2017 Presidential Inauguration, Gary was selected as medical support for the general community at the ceremony. Even more recently, in April, Gary was selected as an aide-de-camp for the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. Tom Price, while visiting Region 4 of Health and Human Services in Atlanta, Ga.

Gary is among many who have answered the call to serve his country using his nursing education. Thank you, Gary, for using your FNU degree to help protect, promote and advance the health and safety of our nation.

At the heart of Frontier Nursing University is a talented and diverse community of students, alumni, faculty, staff, Couriers and preceptors. Spotlight blogs feature members of our FNU community who are focused on the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to deliver quality health care to underserved and rural populations.