EDITOR’S NOTE — Veteran Voices is an annual week-long series introducing WYDaily readers to some of our local veterans. Each story represents a different person in the Historic Triangle communities and shares their stories of service.
NEWPORT NEWS— Anna Hickey, the new Dean of the Luter School of Business at Christopher Newport University, has always had a passion to serve.
“I immigrated from Taiwan, but I came from a family that was very much about public service, military or not. My mother was a military nurse in Taiwan, my stepdad was in the Army, and then served in a civil service capacity in the Air Force. I came from a long line of public servants, so public service was almost an expectation in our family,” Hickey explained.
To realize her dream of serving, Hickey enrolled at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
“I knew I wanted to go somewhere in the military, and I was really blessed because I had an admissions counselor at the Coast Guard Academy call me out of the blue and invited me for a visit. I grew up in a town of 4,000 people in Montana, and when I visited the Coast Guard Academy, it felt very much the same. It was small, everyone knew each other. For me to travel far away and go to college at a service academy, it felt right,” Hickey said.
Entering the academy, Hickey’s first obstacle was getting through the initial military training known as Swab Summer.
“It was a significantly developmental and emotional event for me. My mother didn’t come to see me off because we couldn’t afford it. I was really lucky to have this sponsor family that picked me up at the airport and literally deliver me to the gates of the academy. It’s significant because you go through the whole assimilation from civilian life to a high-engaged structured environment. You have your hair cut and you are in your uniform within hours of arriving,” Hickey said.
Upon graduation, Hickey was placed on a cutter and spent four and a half years at sea.
“Living out at sea was something else. At a very young age, you are responsible for a lot. I was very blessed to have terrific bosses who were patient, who would take the time and give me enough freedom to make decisions and let me learn from that. I was really grateful to have great colleagues, people who graduated with me. To have served operationally, to have done counter-drug operations, being underway and really appreciating the ocean and the sea, that was really terrific,” Hickey recalled.
After returning from her sea deployment, Hickey bounced around in different roles in the Coast Guard, including law enforcement, financial management, and she tried her hand at flight school.
A special moment for Hickey, however, was returning to the Coast Guard Academy as an instructor.
“I thought it was rewarding to come back and just teach in the same department that I majored in. But what’s even more rewarding is that once you are teaching, you have some of your students come back to you as they are out there serving and doing the work, and they take the time and remember you. It’s really neat to see one of your former students develop to a level of competency and accomplishment, and you can sort of say, ‘maybe I was a part of that.’ That is truly the ultimate reward,” Hickey said.
In her capacity at the Coast Guard Academy, she served as a military professor of accounting and held positions of academic administration that included Management Department Head of an AACSB-accredited program, inaugural Dean of the School of Leadership and Management, and, lastly, as the Vice Provost for Academic Administration.
Initially entering to serve five years and get out, Hickey ended up making a career out of her Coast Guard service and recently retired with 28 and a half years under her belt. She is now leading the Luter School of Business at Christopher Newport University.
“This place has a real vibrancy to it. But when you come here, you also feel the real courteousness of the campus, and to me, it felt like the Coast Guard Academy for me. For me to have picked up my life, leaving one of the most meaningful things in my life, it had to be something that really grabbed me emotionally. I feel very blessed that I’ve landed here,” Hickey said.
Hickey remains proud of her service in the Coast Guard and would happily return to active duty if the country called on her.
“I wouldn’t not be able to go. I would never be able to turn away from what the nation needs. Once you see the impact you can make by being part of something bigger, there is no duplicating that unless you live it again.”