Lt. Col. Karon Uzzell-Baggett, USAF (Ret), has always had a strong desire to serve. When she was a child, she volunteered as a candy striper at the VA hospital in Durham, N.C. She was commissioned in the Air Force in 1986 after serving in ROTC at the University of North Carolina.

Her 25-year Air Force career included deployments to Uzbekistan and Afghanistan and assignments across the U.S. and in Italy and Germany. Her final assignment brought her back to ROTC, serving as commander of Air Force ROTC Detachment 790 at Tennessee State University.

After retiring in 2011, Uzzell-Baggett ran the career development center at Tennessee State University. But a mission trip to Haiti made her rethink her path.

“This was a milestone event for me,” she said. “It made me realize that [I] wanted to do a career in health care.”

She got her doctorate in occupational therapy and has been working in the field ever since. She added entrepreneur to her résumé in 2020 when she started her own occupational therapy practice, through which she often does pro bono work.

“[Occupational therapy] has allowed me to take all those things I learned in the military and apply it in the health care realm,” she said. “It’s not just rehabilitation. I want to focus more on preventing chronic diseases, particularly for veterans and women.”

Uzzell-Baggett’s passion for health care has trickled down to her volunteer efforts. She is working to strengthen the Middle Tennessee Chapter’s partnership with Operation Stand Down Tennessee (OSDTN), which connects veterans to career, community, and crisis assistance. She serves on the board of OSDTN, and she and her fellow chapter members are helping with a new initiative of OSDTN called Operation Commissary to address food insecurity among veterans.

“I’m grateful to live in this country, with the benefits and the freedoms we have,” she said. “I’m motivated to show the civilian population that the military population is an asset and ensure that military members get the help that they need.”

'[Occupational therapy] has allowed me to take all those things I learned in the military and apply it in the health care realm. It’s not just rehabilitation. I want to focus more on preventing chronic diseases, particularly for veterans and women.'