Aiming higher: Lori Feucht

Working and studying continues to take up most of Lori Feucht’s time, but she’s OK with that.
Feucht, a native of Corpus Christi, came to Harlingen with her family 26 years ago, and has worked her way up through nursing positions and degrees after spending four years in the Navy as a radio operator, then serving in the Naval Reserve as a hospital corpsman.
Now she is a registered nurse and is clinical nurse manager at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen, Feucht said.
“I manage two units, approximately 100 employees on the clinical side. So I ensure we have the appropriate staff needed to care for the patients on the progressive coronary care unit and our observation unit,” she said.
“I’m married to my work,” Feucht said, laughing.
Her mother, Mary Helen Gonzales, a nurse, and her sister, Alexandria Gonzales, a pharmacy technician, both also work at Valley Baptist.
A 1990 San Benito High School graduate, Feucht joined the Navy in 1992, then came back to the Valley, working at Sunglo Home Health as an accounts payable clerk.
“My mother told me about the licensed vocational nurse program at Valley Baptist, so I passed the test, applied and graduated in ‘98 and started working here at Valley Baptist,” Feucht said.
Then she earned an associate’s degree and later her bachelor of science in nursing degree, both at the University of Texas at Brownsville.
Now she’s working on a master’s degree in health administration at UTB, she said.
“This will allow me to move into a director’s position and possibly later even a higher position someway,” she said.
She and several friends on her floor at the hospital are all involved in advancing in education and careers, she said.
“It’s become real education-focused and oriented,” she said. “We work with their schedules so they can get their education and advance,” she said.
When she has time, she likes to travel, but with work and school, it has been five years since she went to Cancun, Mexico, Feucht said.
“We do little things, local things, go to the beach,” she said. “I just spend a lot of time with my friends or family, just focusing on building those relationships.”
She also likes to read, go to the movies or shop, Feucht said.