I Used To Be ... And Now I'm ...: Sister Act

She used to be a nun, and now she's a leader in IT for public health.

by Patti Ghezzi

July 11, 2008

N ancy Nelson entered the convent in 1968, intent on devoting herself to a simple life of serving a ministry within the Catholic church.

The Philadelphia-born former “Sunday Catholic” turned nun landed at a private school in Washington D.C., working with developmentally disabled students ages six to 21. She started as a teacher and rose to principal.

But her career, her personal life and her faith did not follow the straight-forward path she envisioned. Now,four decades later, she is the public health division program director for Northrop Grumman, the global technology and defense company.Based inAtlanta,Nelson directs a team that works with the CDC and other clients on public health-related technology ranging from outbreak management systems to the comprehensive Web site, CDC.gov.

“We apply technology to public health,”says Nelson,who oversees 1,200 people as part of a contract worth $630 million through 2010.“The thing I appreciate about my journey is I have seen how the stuff I did in the past has created the stepping stones for me to move forward."

Nelson, the oldest of four children in a working-class family, became drawn to the idea of becoming a nun while attending a Catholic high school. “It went through my head as something I wanted to do, and I pursued it,” she says. She worked for a year after high school to earn the $1,000 required to join the convent. The first year was painful as Nelson struggled to find her place.
    
That place, it turned out, was among children with disabilities. She especially enjoyed coaching Special Olympics teams in basketball, swimming, track and other sports. Nelson started out wearing a modified habit, a veil with a conservative skirt. Then, she and other nuns boldly began wearing slacks. By the time she got into coaching, she was wearing whatever attire was appropriate for the sport whether shorts, sweat pants or a bathing suit.
    
While she found satisfaction in working with students, she was uncomfortable with changes going on in the convent. “Doors opened up and you could do any ministry you wanted,” she says. “The path wasn’t clear. It became harder internally. Everybody was trying to find themselves.”
    
She felt there was too much diversification and not enough focus on their mission. “We achieved something [at the private school] and it was very fulfilling,” she says. “When that began to break down, there was no place to hold on.”
     
In 1982, she left the convent, as many nuns before her had done. Most left to get married. (Nelson did not, though she married soon afterward.) She left her life of a nun behind because she knew she couldn’t change what she believed was the wrong course. Nelson was not wired for complacency, a trait that would serve her well in her corporate career. 
    
She explained to her superiors that she was still committed to her vows and her mission, but she had to live out her mission in her own way. First, she had practical concerns such as food, shelter and a job. “You leave with zero,” she says. She slept on a friend’s couch and signed up with a temp service.
    
As a temp, Nelson impressed her boss at the U.S. Department of Energy, and he recruited her to work in the Energy Information Administration. Soon she was moving up the ranks of a company that contracted with the government agency. By 1992, she was a vice president. She was recruited to Atlanta, where she later went to work for another company that won the contract. In 1996, she joined Northrop Grumman.
    
Her bachelor’s degree from Towson State University in Baltimore was in psychology and education, and her master’s degree from George Washington University was in human development. She had no formal education in information technology. That didn’t matter.
     
“What’s most important to me that has been so important from my background is understanding how people work and how they want to be treated,” she says. “We’re really all the same … We all want to be treated fairly…We all want to be trusted.”
    
She tells people who want to work with her that if they’re in it for the technology alone, they should seek employment elsewhere. Her team’s priorities are the customers and their public health challenge, whatever that may be.
    
“I don’t think any of us are all things to all people,” she says. “I find people whose skills complement my skills…The technology details, that’s not my cup of tea, that’s not my strength…I’m about the relationships.”
    
She has led her teams through several extreme and minor makeovers over the years. “You can’t become complacent,” she says. “You can’t be perceived as old. We want to be viewed as constantly re-evaluating.”
    
Many of Nelson’s Atlanta colleagues know she was once a nun, and it’s not a big deal. But in the early days in Washington D.C., she tried to keep her past secret. “I didn’t tell anyone,” she says. “I was still not comfortable in my skin.”
    
However, her efforts to conceal her past were unsuccessful. In the middle of a company softball game, a colleague yelled out, “I heard you were a nun!” Nelson recalls. “My knees knocked together.”
    
In Atlanta, Nelson and her husband raised their three children Catholic. She taught religious education. But her focus shifted from the specifics of the Catholic church to her personal faith. “ My faith is still very strong,” she says.
   
So are her connections with the women she served with in her former career. One works in a community where some of Nelson’s former students, now grown men and women, live. Nelson still has a fondness for those students and an appreciation for how much they taught her. “With those individuals, you didn’t have to go through all the charades.”
    
As a young woman just out of high school, Nelson set out to contribute to society. Things didn’t happen exactly as planned, but she is making a difference - a big difference in IT public health.
     
“If I can help in one little piece,” she says, “I will consider myself successful.”