Connie Bianco Weisman ’81, parlayed her nursing experience into a career in business, using her RN skills as the foundation for her success. Weisman’s father had first inspired her to enter the nursing profession. “My dad had such respect for nurses. He thought they were smart and independent. He said that as a nurse you’d always have a job, which was very appealing.” She describes her experiences at the Lienhard School of Nursing as a real sisterhood. Weisman recalls bonding with her fellow classmates over the curriculum. “By nature, nurses are loving, giving and caring people, so there was an automatic sisterhood among us. We were taking very hard classes and doing clinical rotations in hospitals, which immediately gave you a feel of what the nursing profession would be like.” Upon graduation, Weisman worked as a nurse at New York Hospital supporting the Medical Surgery Floor, Intensive Care Unit and Recovery Room. After three years in nursing, she decided to expand her career in a new way, taking her RN skills to the insurance industry at Marsh & McLennan. The company was looking for individuals who understood how hospitals worked and could do risk assessment so her heath care expertise was a tremendous asset. Weisman then moved to California and began working for the Association of California Hospital Districts, supporting the organization’s insurance program. She recalls, “My nursing background gave me instant credibility with doctors and hospitals.” After taking time off to raise her children, Weisman decided to return to the working world. As fate would have it, her friend was opening a company called Plug and Play Tech Center, a global tech accelerator which connects startups to corporations, and living in Silicon Valley, Weisman was interested in getting involved in the technology space. Weisman currently serves as Director of Healthcare Corporate Innovation at Plug and Play Tech Center, where she introduces healthcare companies to innovative startups that can help enhance their business. With her nursing perspective, Weisman can determine if certain technologies are adaptable in a health care setting, a unique skill that the health care companies and startups value. “I’m so thankful for my education at Pace,” she says. “It got me where I am today. It was a mixture of all those classes – nursing, organization behavior, theory and analytics – that gave me a well-rounded education which allowed me to take my RN and plug it into a business setting and a tech setting.” Weisman demonstrates that a nursing degree can take you wherever you want to go. She says, “In the business world, it’s an asset. Nurses have many valuable skills – they’re collaborative, smart and insightful. And those skills are always there. You can always go back to nursing.” In fact, Weisman’s career may come full circle as she is considering becoming a Nurse Practitioner in her retirement.