Submitted photo / Veterans Administration Campbell native Air Force Brig. Gen. Carol Ann Fausone was honored earlier this year when a medical center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was named after her. Throughout her career, including as a nurse and assistant adjutant general of Veterans Affairs for the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs for Michigan, Fausone has focused on helping others.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — When she walks into the women’s clinic at the Lieutenant Colonel Charles S. Kettles Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Campbell native Carol Ann Fausone knows she’s in the right place. It bears her name.

Brigadier General Carol Ann Fausone Women’s Clinic was named in her honor on May 21.

The road from her birth at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital to the supreme honor of having a women’s clinic named for her was built through her energy and drive to do one thing: assist veterans and those who serve in the U.S. armed forces.

Fausone admits she is “‘Type A’ — but I don’t like to take on a project unless I can go full gear.”

Fausone, now 70, was born to parents John and Mary Babyak and spent her first five years growing up in a relatively spacious flat above the Paris Inn in Campbell owned and operated by her grandmother.

It was there in her formative years that she absorbed lessons in caring and compassion. The tavern was close to the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. mills between Campbell and Struthers, and her grandmother would take in steelworkers who had no family or other living options and house them in the upper three floors of the Paris Inn. Those patrons and tenants often called her “Mama.”

Fausone took those lessons learned in Campbell with her as the growing Babyak family – she has a brother and two sisters – moved to Boardman.

In 1971, she graduated from Cardinal Mooney High School and decided on nursing as a career.

Her father attended the University of Michigan, a college career that was interrupted by his service in the United States Army during World War II. After the war, he completed his degree at UM, and for Fausone her path to higher education was painted maize and blue.

Very unapologetically she said, “I’m Buckeye by birth but Wolverine by choice.”

Fausone came back to Youngstown with her nursing degree in 1975 and became a staff nurse in the emergency trauma room at St. E’s.

While there, though, she never lost her yearning to serve in the military.

“My dad was in the Army, my father-in-law was in the Navy, and my maternal grandfather — ‘Ta-ta’ — served in the First World War. Nobody knew, but I decided to talk to the Navy and Air Force,” she said.

She landed on the Air Force because better opportunities to apply her skills as an emergency room nurse were offered.

She received her commission in the Air Force as a medical officer in 1977. Over the next 36 years, Fausone’s focus, dedication and hard work elevated her to the rank of brigadier general. During her final eight years of service, she was the assistant adjutant general of veterans affairs for the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs for the state of Michigan.

Retired since 2011, Fausone continues to be a strong advocate for veterans, assisting them daily by knocking down barriers to benefits.

She works with her husband, Jim, also a veteran, who established the law firm Legal Help for Veterans, PLLC, over 25 years ago.

Fausone calls herself the “CFO,” but in this case “it means chief fix-it officer,” she said. “It shouldn’t take a brigadier general to fix an issue for a vet, but it helps.”

It also helps that in every effort to help a veteran obtain housing, education or fix health care claims, she carries the power of the “Fausone Pearls of Leadership.”

Listing them, she said, “Be true to yourself, pick the best people, challenge me – I want to learn, too – and get to know your team.”

Over the past 40 years, U.S. military forces have seen a substantial increase in women veterans. “The service academies are now enrolling women, and more women are serving in roles like combat pilots,” she said.

Accordingly, the need for medical clinics designed specifically for female veterans has increased.

When asked about the honor of having such a clinic named for her, Fausone grew a little emotional.

“I’m very honored and it is a privilege, but I don’t know if I’m deserving…”

Air Force Brig. Gen. Carol Ann Fausone, now retired, passed “deserving” decades ago, it seems. In her address at May’s clinic dedication ceremony, she spoke of her adherence to the Air Force Creed: “Integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do.” She said, “Those core values are embossed on my soul.”

Now her name is embossed on a wall in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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