The Bass file
Born: San Diego
What’s the best place you have ever lived?
The best place I’ve ever lived is where I currently live. I was a Navy brat, so we moved. I remember as a youngster we’d be complaining, and my dad would say, ‘The next place you live will be the best place you’ve ever lived. The next friends you make will be the best friends you’ve ever had.’ Isn’t it interesting that that’s the way it always turned out?
Education: Bachelor’s degree in business administration; North Carolina Wesleyan; master’s in business, Campbell University
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A chemical engineer. The sad part of my life’s story is I graduated from high school in Virginia and was accepted at NC State University as a chemical engineer, but in five semesters as a chemical engineer, I realized it wasn’t what I wanted to be. I dropped out of college and got a job working for the state of North Carolina at a lab and shortly thereafter was drafted by Uncle Sam for the United States Army in 1969.
I had six years in the U.S. Army, which introduced me to health care. Back then, at age 20, when I got drafted, I was 6 feet 2 inches and weighed 128 pounds. I must have had an overactive thyroid because I ate nonstop anytime I was awake. After three days in Fort Bragg, N.C., I decided I wanted to have more say about, No. 1, more food that I would eat and, No. 2, how dangerous my job would be, knowing that Vietnam was going on full blast at that time.
So I went to a recruiter and I said, ‘I understand if I enlist for a third year — so I become an enlistee versus a draftee — I can choose what I want to be.’ He said, ‘Yes, sir, that’s how it works.’ I said, ‘I’ve been told I need to find something that’s in a hospital because they’ll have the best and the most food and should be one of the safest places.’ They pushed the list across the desk of MOS’s — mode of service, which is your job description — and I ran my finger down the list to the first one that had medical in it — medical equipment repairmen. He said, ‘We’ll send you to school in Denver, and we’ll teach you how to repair medical equipment.’ I said, ‘I’ll be working in the hospital?’ He said, ‘Yep,’ and I said, ‘I’ll take it.’ Thus launched my health care career.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
I don’t know if there’s a specific one, but I’m the eternal optimist, always have been, so somewhere along the lines, someone must have told me to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives.
