Chuck Ford’s path to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s professional studies in dietetics program is anything but traditional. Multiple college degrees. Multiple professions. Retirement. Now he’s back in the classroom with another new career on the horizon. An incredible journey for someone who wasn’t particularly interested in going to college out of high school.
“I wanted to be a photographer, and I didn’t really want to go to school full time to be a photographer, so I started looking around and landed on the Navy.”
The first highlight of his military experience came when the first flight of his life took him to Florida for the winter. After boot camp in Orlando and photography school in Pensacola, Ford was stationed on the USS Enterprise, a now-decommissioned Navy aircraft carrier.
“It took me all the way around the world,” Ford said. “I literally crossed every line of longitude three times during my 4 1/2 years that I stayed there. (I’ve) been on every continent except Antarctica. I’ve crossed the equator three times. I just traveled the whole world. And it was just amazing.”
He experienced some conflict while deployed in the Persian Gulf.
“In 1989, one of our ships hit an Iranian mine in the gulf and we took a measured response,” Ford said. “At the time, it was the largest naval battle since World War II. We sunk a ship and blew up a boat and some oil platforms. I was the only top-secret cleared photographer on the ship, so I was responsible for all the bomb damage assessment.”
After the USS Enterprise, Ford moved to the Atlantic Intelligence Command in Norfolk, Virginia. He stayed there for another year and a half before completing his active duty and returning to his hometown of St. Joseph, Missouri, to work for his dad in the restaurant business. He eventually moved to Lincoln and decided to leave the restaurant profession and pursue a bachelor’s degree in horticulture at the university because of his experience working at a golf course.
“While I was living in St. Joe and working for my dad, I worked at the St. Joe Country Club and I loved it,” Ford said. “I just loved getting up and going to work and I still love the golf course industry.”
After graduating, Ford worked as an assistant superintendent and golf course superintendent before joining Husker Athletics to manage the athletics fields and eventually Haymarket Park. While working at the university, he also completed his Master of Business Administration with a specialization in marketing.
After some family health challenges, Ford changed careers again, this time joining Veterans Affairs to work in Veterans Benefits Administration. Over the course of 10 years, he moved to Denver, worked his way up, and got to a point he could retire and return to Lincoln.
He was enjoying retirement until some health issues came up that he wanted to learn more about. His solution? Return to college.
“I came and took some classes in nutrition to learn how to eat properly,” Ford said. “It was like opening a whole new world. One thing led to another and I was like, ‘Man, I should try to make this into a new career and see what I can do.’”
So, he is. Ford is now a first-year student in the professional studies in dietetics program in the Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences. His wife is currently in a master’s program in integrative health and wellness coaching at Creighton University, and after they finish, they’re planning to build their own business.
“I’m going to take care of the nutrition, and she’s going to take care of the lifestyle,” Ford said. “We want to work with people that are just trying to live healthier.”
As he reflects on his journey, there are two things he learned in the Navy that stand out as having shaped who he is today.
“Discipline and attention to detail. Those two things have really molded just about everything in my life. My wife just asked me that last night, ‘Were you like this before you joined the military?’ And the answer was no. I learned the attention to detail. I fold my clothes a special way. I do all those things still today. 35 years after getting out of the military they’re still ingrained in me. And the discipline, you know, sometimes you don’t want to do things, but you just buck up and do it and you go do what you’ve got to do.”
College of Education and Human Sciences
Nutrition and Health Sciences
