(EDITOR’S NOTE: The Valley Life features during the Sundays in December will focus on residents with a local connection reflecting on their challenges and achievements during 2015.)

William Vernon Pyles didn’t grow up thinking he’d become a nurse some day.

But a visit with a friend’s grandmother changed that for the 1993 graduate of Mingo High School.

“I did not have the initial thought of nursing but a good friend, Christopher Heilman, now manager of Acuity at Trinity East, arranged for the two of us to visit his grandmother,” explained Pyles, the son of Verna K. Pyles, a resident of Sienna Woods in Wintersville, and the late Floyd Pyles, who died in 2002.

Pyles said Donna Gundrum, a nurses aid who worked at the former Ohio Valley Hospital for more than 34 years, introduced them to nursing instructors on the floor where she worked, “ever so gently” encouraging them to visit the nursing school.

“While we were visiting, she arranged for a clinical instructor to meet us and next thing you know, we were applying for the school of nursing,” Pyle said, referring to what was at that time the Ohio Valley Hospital School of Nursing, the predecessor to Trinity School of Nursing.

A 1996 graduate of the OVH School of Nursing, Pyles now lives in Peoria, Ariz., and is a nurse at the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix, where he’s part of the ICU staff and cardiac transport team.

It’s also where his love for the profession continues to grow, and his contribution to it does not go unnoticed or unappreciated.

At the hospital’s annual service recognition reception where annual service awards are presented and employees recognized for years of service, Pyles was singled out for two awards at the formal event held at the JW Marriott in Phoenix.

Pyles was presented two special awards commending his work – the Individual Award for Service Excellence, which he knew he was receiving, and the Mae Berry Award for Service Excellence, a “huge surprise.”

They were presented by Dr. Wyatt W. Decker, vice president and chief executive officer of Mayo Phoenix, and Paula E. Menkosky, chief administrative officer, Mayo Clinic in Arizona.

All consulting/voting staff, allied health staff, students and volunteers at Mayo Clinic are eligible for the Individual Award for Service excellence. “The qualifications are impressive. Candidates must exhibit high standards of ethics and performance and have interpersonal skills that demonstrate respect and support for people and for Mayo’s goals and principles. They are high achievers, and they know how to tackle difficult challenges. Importantly, their good work inspires and motivates others,” the hospital website notes.

Criteria includes:

Having three or more years of service at Mayo Clinic with multiple examples of providing outstanding service;

Serving as a role model to others by consistently demonstrating a commitment to service excellence;

Going “above and beyond” expectations of patients and co-workers by providing timely, reliable and personal attention to their needs;

Motivating and inspiring others with their positive attitude, high achievement and excellent interpersonal skills;

Demonstrating high standards of ethics, performance and core principles of mutual respect (integrity, trust, courtesy and dignity);

Being seen as a team player ensuring everyone around him/her is successful making Mayo Clinic the No. 1 choice for patients;

Demonstrating superb problem-solving skills and sound judgment, positively impacting the patient experience; and

Demonstrating a commitment to quality and continuous improvement.

The Mae Berry Award for Service Excellence is so named in honor of Mae Berry, the mother of Dr. Leonard Berry, who holds the Zale Chair of Retailing and Marketing Leadership and is a distinguished professor of marketing at Texas A&M University.

According to information Pyles provided, Dr. Berry is the author of many books and is recognized as one of the leading authorities on customer service. In 2001 and 2002, he spent his sabbatical at Mayo Clinic studying service delivery in health care. His research recently was published in the Harvard Business Review. In honor of his mother, he has endowed the Mae Berry Service Excellence Award to be given annually to two allied-health employees from each Mayo campus.

Recipients of it are selected from past (12-month) recipients of the Individual Award for Service Excellence. They must be a member of allied health staff and employed for more than three years with multiple examples of providing outstanding service.

Other criteria, according to information provided, includes:

Serving as a role model to co-workers and inspiring others to replicate service behaviors;

Acting selflessly to meet the needs of the patient and/or co-workers with no thought of reward;

Compassionately approaching patients and/or co-workers as if they were the highest priority;

Going above and beyond on a daily basis to provide timely, reliable attention to the needs of patients, co-workers and clients; and

Working as a collaborative team member to make Mayo Clinic the first choice for both patients and staff.

“It was extremely humbling to realize the impact one person can have on others and patients by simply trying to be open to opportunities and serving others,” Pyles said when asked for his thoughts on receiving the awards.

“When I was presented with the awards, I was given the letters of recommendation from my co-workers, supervisors, physicians and up to the head of ICU medicine for Mayo here in Phoenix. I read those, and it hit me how much influence a positive, hard-working ethic has on the team, always remembering ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,'” he said.

Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life, according to its website. It has major campuses in Rochester, Minn.; Scottsdale, Ariz., and Phoenix; and Jacksonville, Fla. The Mayo Clinic Health System has dozens of locations in several states, its website notes.

This year, 1.3 million people from all 50 states and 143 countries came to Mayo Clinic for care.

In Arizona, Mayo Clinic “serves more than 100,000 patients each year with an integrated, team-based approach. The clinical practice is focused on adult specialty and surgical care in more than 65 medical and surgical disciplines, supported by outstanding programs in medical education and research,” the website notes. “The original Scottsdale campus, which opened in 1987, includes the Mayo Clinic Building, the Samuel C. Johnson Research Building and the Mayo Clinic Collaborative Research Building. The Phoenix campus includes the Mayo Clinic Specialty Building and Mayo Clinic Hospital.”

“I love the field of nursing because it is limitless in opportunities in the field of medicine and is always changing,” said Pyles, who is advancing his education at Liberty University.

Pyles began his health care career working at Medi Home Health in Steubenville from 1996-97, then at Trinity West for the following two years in its step-down and ICU.

Next came work from 1999 to 2005 as a travel ICU registered nurse with American Mobile in Pittsburgh; Columbus; Duke-Durham, N.C.; Miami; Beth Israel-Boston; San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco; and Phoenix-Mayo.

Since 2005, he has worked at the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix where he is part of the ICU staff, cardiac transport team, ECMO team, relief team lead and a member of the rapid response team.

“A team would have two nurses, one cardiac surgeon and one other cardiac specialist,” he explained. “We go to different hospitals to rescue patients that have failed the therapies at those facilities and start cardiac bypass, then bring them back to our hospital, basically the last option of the road for the sickest of the sick.”

ECMO, he noted, is an acronym for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

In layman’s terms, “it is basically full cardiac bypass like one would have during heart surgery. The unique thing is there are only a few facilities in every region that can perform this therapy and even less that have nurses primarily running the machine,” he said.

“I also present lectures for renal failure and their therapies for the ICU and critical care,” he added.

Pyles resides in Peoria with his wife, the former Amanda Hartsouk, who also works at the Mayo Clinic, sharing “nearly the same work experience.” She is a former Richmond resident and graduate of Edison High School and the OVH School of Nursing. Married since 1996, they have two children: Jack, 11, and Emily, 6.

Beyond his nursing career and family, Pyles enjoys mission work as a team member in 207 Miles, which raises funds for the Phoenix-based 1 Mission founded in 2008 by Jason Law, a former Scottsdale firefighter.

1Mission is a “community development organization giving people in poverty the opportunity to earn a house by serving their community,” according to its website. The nonprofit works throughout Mexico, Nicaragua and El Salvador and has built some 350 homes so far.

207 Miles is a weekend charity bike ride from Peoria to Puerto Penasco, Mexico, that brings together “hardcore cyclists, weekend warriors and people with limited cycling experience,” according to the website, all united in a common goal toward fighting poverty. The charity rides have raised more than $200,000 for 1Mission since 2008.

“I have been involved since its inception when a neighbor told me of his idea to ride his bike to Mexico and post the ride on social media to build homes, and I was all in,” Pyles said of his involvement. “The first year there were six riders, and now there are probably around 150 people. I am the head of the medical staff and kitchen where we serve dinner and breakfast to all involved in the ride,” he said. “1Mission supports a three-day trip to build a home with the local community and family that provides the arrangements for the home. I have taken neighborhood and work friends with us for home builds. The proceeds from the 207 have built many homes and got those riders more involved to go back and build a home after the ride,” he said.