Inside Duke Medicine

Michael Zollo: A veteran’s story

Watching Michael Zollo run the Diagnostic Division in the Radiology Department, colleagues might get the sense that the highly organized manager is a tad – well – militaristic. He manages the Diagnostic Division by the book and when he speaks, he getsright to the point, he says. But the man can’t help it. It’s in his blood. Zollo, 41, is a third-generation soldier. His grandfather, an Italian immigrant, served in the U.S. Army in World War I and II, retiring as a colonel. His father served during the Vietnam era. Zollo is a long-time drill sergeant, and some of that training, he finds, might just trickle into his day job managing 35 employees at Durham Regional Hospital.

“He emphasizes teamwork and earns respect by treating us like equals,” says Alma Lynch, a radiology supervisor who works with Zollo.

Like other military veterans at Duke, Zollo will spend Veterans Day (Nov. 11) meditating on the impact his service has had on his life and the lives of others. Zollo, who spent most of his childhood in Florida, joined the Army in his early twenties because he needed money for college. He had found his calling.

“I was born to be a soldier,” he says.

He spent his first enlistment gaining experience as an X-ray technician, which helped build his professional career. But it was in later enlistments that Zollo discovered a more fulfilling role: serving as drill sergeant. Zollo soon was teaching 250 or more young men and women, in grueling eight-week stints, how to survive life-and-death situations, such as what to do after contact with a nuclear or biological agent and how to engage in combat in complete darkness. He thinks often about the soldiers he prepared for missions overseas.

“I like to think I taught them everything they need to know to be able to come back home,” he says.

To be effective, Zollo modeled his manner after Dan Williams, the drill sergeant who pushed him through boot camp years ago.

“He never had to raise his voice,” Zollo says. “Without him, I don’t know that I would have known what to do.”

Zollo spent nearly nine years working as a drill sergeant, but recently took time off to start a family. Now with a 19-month-old son, Zollo is considering returning to the Army for another round as a reservist.

“You can take me out of the Army,” he says. “But you can’t take the Army out of me.”