I started my nursing career after graduating from Barnes Hospital School of Nursing in St.Louis, MO.  I worked at St. Louis Children’s Hospital (1963-1966) and Shriner's Hospital for Crippled Children (1966-1969) while pursuing my baccalaureate degree in nursing in night school.  I received my degree as a member of the last class to graduate from the nursing program at Washington University (1969).  I worked in the Staff Development department at Barnes Hospital after I earned my degree and began work on a master’s degree in medical–surgical nursing at St. Louis University.

After graduation with my master's degree (1971), I started my doctoral degree in education and began teaching at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville (SIUE).  I married John Gresley, Jr. when I was about halfway through my doctoral course work.  After graduating with my PhD in Education (1979), I had two children, John III and Jeffrey.  I continued my career at SIUE, teaching medical surgical nursing, acquiring course work in community health nursing, moving from coordinator to Associate Dean of Academics and serving as interim Dean of the School of Nursing (1994-95).  I came to Concordia University Wisconsin in 1996 as the Graduate Program Director to help launch the Master of Science in Nursing degree.  It has been a very successful opportunity.  There were twelve students enrolled in two courses when I came and now there are 280+ students in three career options.  I was promoted to Dean of the School of Human Services in 1999.  I developed the Nurse Educator option in 2004 and have had a wonderful experience practicing my craft of teaching for the past several years.

In 2005, I was one of the first nursing educators to take and pass the Certified Nurse Educator examination offered by the National League for Nursing.  Currently, I am serving as the interim department chair for the Nursing Department during the search process for a new chair.