Brigadier General William T. Bester, M.S.N. 1985

General Bester is an alumnus of The Catholic University of America, having received an M.S.N. in 1985. 

Bester began his career in nursing by joining the Army Student Nurse Program while earning his B.S.N. from Duluth’s College of St. Scholastica. After graduating in 1974, Bester received his first military assignment in the post anesthesia care unit at the Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, WA. In 1976, he was sent to Okinawa, where he served as a clinical staff nurse until he was sent to study anesthesiology at Beaumont Army Medical Center in Texas in 1977. After six months, he returned to the Madigan Army Medical Center for clinical anesthesia training through 1979. He then began an anesthesia assignment at Fort Sill, OK, but was temporarily reassigned to Fort Chaffee, AR for a humanitarian mission, the Cuban Refugee Operation, as the only anesthetist. After returning to Fort Sill, Bester left the field of anesthesiology and pursued field nursing. 

In 1981, Bester began a series of non-hospital assignments when he was appointed chief nurse of the 10th Combat Support Hospital at Fort Meade, MD. Shortly after, he was sent to pursue a master’s degree in medical-surgical nursing at CatholicU. Upon graduating, he was assigned as a nurse instructor at Fort Sam Houston, TX before becoming a supervisor of recruiters for the mid-western states in 1988. With two successful years of recruiting, Bester was appointed as the Personnel Management Officer, a role in which he guided the careers of other military nurses. After nearly a decade, Bester returned to the hospital setting and held several positions both nationally and abroad. 

Returning from an assignment in Europe, Bester studied at the Army War College in 1997. In 1998 he was assigned command of the Army hospital at Fort Jackson, SC and was soon promoted to brigadier general and the 21st chief of the Army Nurse Corps in 2000 – Bester being the first male to hold the position. His tenure as chief of the Corps lasted four years, during which he increased and enhanced recruitment and retention efforts, as well as gender and ethnic diversity, resulting in increased funding for military nursing research. Bester retired from the military in 2004, but continued to mentor nurses and hold senior academic positions and work part-time with the Jonas Center for Nursing and Veterans Healthcare.

Brigadier General Anna Mae V. Hays, M.S.N. 1968

General Hays is an alumna of The Catholic University of America, having received an M.S.N. in 1968. 

Hays’ nursing career began after she graduated from Allentown General Hospital School of Nursing in 1941 and joined the Army Nurse Corps a year later. In 1943, Hays’ unit was assigned to India, where she spent 2 ½ years during World War II and was promoted to first lieutenant. Remaining with the Corps, Hays returned to the United States and held various leadership positions in hospitals along the east coast before traveling to Korea on a second military combat tour in 1950. After seven months, she transferred to Tokyo Army Hospital where she spent a year before returning stateside. Hays then graduated from the Nursing Service Administration at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas and was subsequently appointed as the head nurse at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC and served as a private nurse for President Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

In 1958, Hays earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing education from Teachers’ College at Columbia University. After this, she was made head nurse of the Nuclear Medicine and Radioisotope Clinic at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. She then returned to Korea in 1960 and served as the chief nurse of the 11th Evacuation Hospital in Pusan until she was appointed as the assistant chief of the Army Nurse Corps between 1963-66. In 1967, Hays was then made the 13th Chief of the Corps and held this position until her retirement in 1971. It was during her tenure as chief that she earned her M.S.N. from CatholicU.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon appointed Hays to the rank of chief brigadier general, making her the first woman in the US Army to bear the honor. Hays is remembered both for her selfless service and for paving the way for equal treatment of women in the military.

Ida Cammon Robinson, B.S.N.E. 1948, M.S.N. 1958, L.H.D. 2010

Ida C. Robinson is an alumna of The Catholic University of America, having received a B.S.N.E. in 1948, an M.S.N. in 1958, and being awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters at the University’s 2010 commencement ceremony.

Robinson contributed her talents to the nursing field, caring for others and developing education and training programs for nurses. In 1963, Robinson was appointed Associate Director of Nursing Education at the Freedmen’s Hospital School of Nursing (F.H.S.N.), which offered a nursing education to Black nurses since its establishment in 1884 in the wake of the Civil War and the Great Migration of freed slaves needing medical attention in Washington, DC. It is one of the first institutions in America to offer Black individuals a nursing education before the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Higher Education Act in 1965 were passed and desegregated the schooling systems. During her tenure at F.H.S.N., the School was transferred to Howard University, which phased it out to create its own college of nursing. In 1969 Robinson was made Director of Nursing Education, a position she held through 1973, when F.H.S.N. graduated its last class. 

Though the F.H.S.N. was phased out, Robinson was committed to preserving its history and alumni network, which she was active in up until her passing in 2017.