Staff Spotlight: Leslie Gannon

What do you do at the College of Nursing?
I am the Public Relations/Event Coordinator.

What is your favorite part of your job, and why?
I love being involved with 100 Great Iowa Nurses! I read some incredible stories through the hundreds of nominations, and it’s rewarding to see these men and women get the recognition they seldom get and so richly deserve. And it’s wonderful to see how much it means to the honorees’ families and friends … many of them have 20 or more guests at this annual event. I even recall one of the nurses having more than 50 “fans” in attendance!

What did you do before you worked at the college?
I was the event coordinator at the University of Iowa Foundation. Prior to moving to Iowa City, my husband Mark & I owned the Hollywood Grille in Okoboji, IA. Even though we had not owned/operated the establishment for many years, we were still sad to learn about it burning down this past summer.

Where did you grow up? Tell us something about your childhood/hometown.
I’m Iowa-born and bred, and have two hometowns. I was raised in Jewell (20 miles north of Ames) where I went to South Hamilton. When I was a sophomore in high school my dad retired from his veterinary practice and we moved to our summer home in Clear Lake, so I graduated there. It was not easy being uprooted at that age, but I made a lot of good friends in Clear Lake, too, and of course loved the summers on the lake.

What is the most recent book you’ve read? Did you like it? If so, why?
I’ve been on a reading binge lately. I just finished Steven King’s The Shining for my scary October book. It was okay, but I’ve seen the movie so many times, and Nicholson & Duvall were so incredible in it, I just couldn’t get used to the differences in the book. My most recent favorite book was Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. It’s about a woman who disappears and her husband becomes the prime suspect. I can’t tell too much without giving it away, but the story takes so many evil twists and turns it almost left me breathless!

If you could vacation anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
When it comes to traveling I’m pretty simple. I don’t need a lot of sight-seeing or activities. Just give me a beach on the Caribbean, a pile of books and a Margarita, and I’m happy (although my first-ever biking vacation in Summit County, Colorado, last summer was pretty awesome, too)!

What do you do away from the office? Tell us about your hobbies/volunteer activities, etc.
A lot of my spare time, when weather permits, is spent on two wheels. I’ve done 3-1/2 RAGBRAIs, and will finish 2012 with more than 2,000 miles biked. When I’m not on my bicycle, I love reading, cooking and good wine. The other half of my work week—when I’m not at the CON—is spent working on Hair of the Dawg … a business Mark & I started in 2009.

What’s your dream car?
I’m not really into cars that much … but one of my bucket list items is to cruise the Pacific Coast Highway and Napa Valley in a 1967 Lincoln Continental convertible with suicide doors.

Tell us about your family.
If there is a family lottery, I won the Powerball. I’ve been married to the amazing Mark Gannon for 12-1/2 years. We have no kids together, but he has three grown children – Chad, Lindsay and Chelsey. Chad lives in Minneapolis with his new wife, Andrea. The girls both live in Chicago, where Lindsay was just married. We have a cat, C.B., at home, and a grand-pup, Capone, in Chicago. Mark’s extended family (brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews) numbers 26.

As for the family that I grew up in … I am the youngest of, as my dad used to joke, “9 kids, and they’re all boys except for 7 of them!” Although we lost my sister, Gail, at the young age of 25, and my dad in 1994, the Ahrens clan has grown to 34 with in-laws, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Mark and I hosted this crazy group last year for our Ugly Sweater Christmas Party, which was complete chaos and nearly destroyed our house – but I wouldn’t trade them for the world! :)