BS, Montana State Univ., 1966
BS, Colorado State Univ., 1970
DVM, Colorado State Univ., 1974
MHA, Baylor Univ., Waco, TX, 1985
President, Catanzaro & Assoc., Golden, CO, 1991-present
Dir. Hosp. Srvc., American Animal Hosp. Assoc., Denver, CO, 1987-91
Commander, 64th Med. Det., Germany, 1985-87
Resident, Brooke Army Medical Center, Ft. Sam Houston, TX, 1984-85
I made the decision to attend veterinary school at the end of my bachelor degree efforts at Montana State University, but as an ROTC Distinguished Military Graduate, I was already committed to enter the military at graduation. At the ROTC commissioning ceremony, I wore Armor brass (DMGs had to have a combat arm tour), opened my commission, and discovered I was an MSC; MFSS was in my future, and I did not even know what Medical Field Service School was. MFSS was the quadrangle, the Pit, and a lot of guys who wondered what they had gotten themselves into by being Medical Service Corps. Graduating from college and entering active duty in the mid-1960s meant an all expense paid vacation in Southeast Asia needed to be in my career pattern before I could even consider attending the next level of my educational studies. It took three Infantry unit tours in a row as an MSC (the middle one was when I volunteered for Vietnam and ended-up in the 4th Infantry Division), and a logistics S-4/G-4 (MOS 4010) course at Fort Lee, before I was able to return to complete my educational goals.
While in Vietnam, I had applied to get out of service to complete my veterinary degree, and “Branch” came back with a brand-new program for veterinary degree completion, which included: full pay, allowances, tuition, fees, book subsidy, and continuation of time in grade for retirement, with only a one-for-one payback. Throw me in the briar patch and call me dumbfounded; I took the offer and requested a Colorado assignment so I could gain residency before application to Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine. The initial contact was less than exciting, since the CSU selection board did not like “old guys” entering Veterinary Medicine. I took excess leave and completed a year of pre-professional (which gave me my second B.S. degree), waiting for the CSU selection board to be reconfigured, which it did, using many WWII public health veterinarians. They made the strategic decision to admit Vietnam veterans and “older guys” who knew what they wanted, in an effort to reduce attrition during the four-year professional curriculum. Half my class was Vietnam veterans, and on a college campus in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that was a big comfort.
All during veterinary school, I carried my MSC commission and active duty status, selecting summer duty assignments that would augment my professional education. Upon graduation from Colorado State University, I now had two bachelor degrees and a doctor of veterinary medicine. They not only gave me a branch transfer to the Veterinary Corps, but they made me class commander for my second basic course, Veterinary Corps at Fort Sheridan, Illinois; that was a hoot!
Upon finishing my second basic course, I needed to attend the Advanced Course (Captain, over eight years active duty), so I had the privilege of being reassigned to the Academy of Health Sciences, Veterinary Division, as a snow bird until the next Advanced Course. My first job was to move the Veterinary Branch school from Fort Sheridan to Fort Sam Houston; the librarians still hate me for brining in all those old animal anatomy books. Could not convince them that unlike most sciences, anatomy never changes, so old books are still valid teaching tools.
My second major challenge was doing Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) at AHS, so I had to enroll in computer training for AHS systems in 1974. I do not know if the vacuum tubes filled the back room, but I do know that programming self-instructed training revealed that my logic could build CAI decision trees that could confuse anyone with practical experience. The senior NCOs who took the CAI program were led down primrose paths to oblivion, while the neophytes learned as it was provided and followed true paths to proper answers. I believe that is where my Veterinary Corps reputation was really started. As a past MSC, I had more command time than most veterinarians, and as such, was used as both a trouble shooter and problem solver for the Veterinary Corps, including assuming command slots most of the time.
In the late 1970s, while commanding Veterinary Detachment Japan, it was evident that specialization was entering the veterinary profession. The advanced degree of choice in the Veterinary Corps was a Masters in Public Health, and that did not excite me. I looked at the clinical specialties, and found that they were not super-exciting either. I decided I needed to do something with an advanced degree, but being in Japan limited my choices, so I told “Branch” that I may need to leave service; they offered me the Health Services Command Inspector General team so I could travel and explore options. This sounded interesting, so I opted for the HSC assignment in 1980.
During the initial training by DA IG, the first IG finding I wrote was against the DA IG himself (LTG Trefry), for assuming Japan was an HSC responsibility for AMEDD, and thereby bypassing them during the previous 9th Corp & U.S. Army Japan IG. This started a long and close relationship with a very influential person at DA. The HSC IG team had been staffed with many graduates of the U.S. Army Baylor MHA program, from T.R. Byrne and Jake Lozada (now Assistant Secretary in VA) to Nancy Adams (past NC Chief) and Sandy Hamper (now CEO of Healthcare Transitions), and this relationship, as well as the JCAHO standards we used, gave me perspectives I had not gained while in VC Command positions overseas. The DA IG link became very handy, when the Veterinary Corps wanted me to leave the IG team early and become the Action Officer for the DoD Veterinary Officer consolidation (660 VC slots of Air Force and Army being combined to 440 VC slots under Army Executive Agent control for all of DoD).
Long story short, General Trefry asked me what I wanted, as a “benefit” for leaving the IG team early, and I started the U.S. Army Baylor MHA program. The Veterinary Corps said they did not like sending officers to that “worthless” advanced degree, but they would select me in two years, after the consolidation; the DA IG made them select me immediately and defer the attendance for two years, so they could not “forget.” The two-year project for the DoD consolidation of veterinary support was a total emersion experience, from 5-year DoD budgets, to Congressional subcommittee testimony, to developing “defensible” prospective-staffing guidelines, to planning the allocation and deployment of scare veterinary resources. So that is how I became a designated “class leader” in the Baylor program in 1983, a senior veterinarian in the back of the classroom. Early on, my credo was “90 percent plus-or-minus- 5", which drove Bob Moore up the wall. Bob was our economics professor, and wanted super-achievers; he was also the green LT I delivered “welcome wine” to in Vietnam, when he entered the 4th Medical Battalion of the 4th Infantry Division, so I had a bit of Teflon coating. He even tolerated my “human-animal bond” twist, which I added to most all of our assignments during the four semesters at AHS.
Art Badgett was our number cruncher professor, and a super advocate for our class; it did not hurt that he really wanted to be a farrier when he grew up. The one man who has become a legend in our minds has been Dick Harder, FACHE; he was the head of the program while we were at AHS. He has never failed to keep track of our class members, in the two decades since we were at Fort Sam Houston, and even seeks us out at the U.S. Army-Baylor dinners at the annual ACHE Congress.
The residency year was unique, since as a veterinarian I did not want to spend a year at a single hospital; Baylor allowed me to tailor the year, and I was allowed to rotate almost everywhere, from San Antonio Hospice, to Columbia University (NY, NY) Thanatology Department, to Texas A&M Preventive Medicine, to Texas Animal Health Commission, to San Antonio Zoo, plus every type of hospital I could find, including Navy, Air Force, Army, For Profit, Not for Profit, Children’s Hospital, VA, and private facilities. Interestingly, during the residency rotations, when I was not using my JACHO background from the IG team, I was often using my “human-animal bond” perspective to augment healthcare delivery programs. On rare occasions, like when roping crocodile, treating trench mouth in a rattle snake, or casting an elephant’s foot with boat builder fiberglass while at the San Antonio Zoo, my veterinary skills were even used.
At the end of my residency year, the VC Branch was going to assign me to Fort Huachuca or Fort Bragg, and neither was considered “career enhancing,” an informal requirement of both post-IG and post-MHA program officers. The VC Branch said there were no other options, so I called LTG Trefry and requested assistance in getting the largest MTOE command slot for VC officers in Europe, which was opening up one month BEFORE I finished my residency (which is why it was not available). Long story short, he told the VC Branch that he would bring me back on the IG team to finish out my tour, inspecting veterinary facilities, so the VC Branch then decided I should get that command slot in Germany. Somehow, it was kind of evident that most all bridges had been burnt in my career pattern, so I resigned myself to Germany being a terminal tour; I retired from Germany at 21 years service. I was an unemployed transient for 19 days, while I traveled from Fort Dix Discharge Center to Golden, Colorado, where my new job was waiting with the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) - and my family’s 17th move in 21 years.
After four years as the Hospital Services Director of the American Animal Hospital Association (where we used JCAHO-type variable accreditation to upgrade their veterinary hospital inspections), I started my own veterinary consulting firm (www.v-p-c.com
Could I have done all this without the military leadership and strategic response training, without the U.S. Army-Baylor course, or without the support of my family - I think not.