Brooklyn, N.Y., native Nancy Wyman’s early work paid almost nothing. In fact, the stipend she received didn’t even cover the cost to ride the bus to one of the city’s hospitals where she volunteered as a candy striper.
But it was that early experience that shaped her desire to pursue a health care career in radiology.
During her candy striper days, men dominated the radiology department. In fact, that was exactly why many of her fellow candy stripers wanted to volunteer in that department.
“A lot of the young girls wanted to work there because that was where they put a lot of the volunteer men,” she said. But the hospital’s radiologists took a liking to Wyman, vouching for her sincere desire to work, so she got the nod.
After graduating from the Manhattan School of Technology, she went to work at the same hospital. But this time, she earned a paycheck working as a radiation therapist.
At times, the work was heartbreaking. “I had been treating a little girl for cancer, and she hadn’t come back for one of her appointments. It was the hardest part of my job,” she recalled. “But her mom came back with all of the bows that [the little girl] would wear in her hair. I called my mother, crying, and she told me, ‘You’ve got to make up your mind. Is this what you want to do?’ I decided that at least I could help [the girl] while she was here.”
Wyman, whose husband was brought to Connecticut in 1973 for an insurance job, continued her work in the health care field. But after injuring her back, her radiology work came to a halt.
“So I got involved in my kids’ education,” she said. The first thing on her agenda was to impeach the entire Tolland Board of Education.
Wyman was a stranger to politics. It was a subject never brought up at the dinner table while she was growing up.
“There were three topics my family never, never talked about at the dining room table: sex, religion or politics. You just stayed away from that,” she said.
Her activism led her into Connecticut’s political realm. Upset about the school board’s policies, she contacted Tolland’s Democratic town chairman, who invited Wyman to attend a Democratic Town Committee meeting.
“I was nervous about it,” she remembers.
Soon she discovered that while the president could be impeached, the town’s board of education could not. Plan B was to ensure that the current board members were not re-elected, which landed her own name on the ballet.
From 1979 to 1987, Wyman served on Tolland’s Board of Education. Next, she became a state representative until 1993, when she made a successful run for state Comptroller. She was re-elected in 1998, 2002 and 2006.
“The health care background has helped me so much,” Wyman said. “As state Comptroller, half of my job is dealing with the health care of 200,000 people — state employees and retirees – and the different programs for municipalities.”