Krista Coey ’16, ’18 was a member of the Army National Guard for 14 years and during that time, her unit deployed to Iraq, for Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn, where they transitioned from combat operations to a focus on winning hearts and minds.

Coey worked as a logistics clerk within her battalion, where she handled logistics for people to safely leave and return to the base. She also worked in dangerous missions in Combat Operations. She monitored any movement, sent out route clearance, and called for air support.

“When I came home from my first deployment,” she said, “I knew I wanted to be a nurse.” She enrolled at Viterbo in 2011. In 2012, she studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and one year later, she was deployed to Afghanistan, another combat deployment where she was responsible for logistics again, but this time as a mission focused on the withdrawal of combat forces.

Upon returning to La Crosse and Viterbo, Coey reconsidered her major. She realized she had enough credits to minor in psychology, and given everything she had witnessed and experienced, that field was now of interest to her. “I knew I wanted to go the route of mental health counseling, because I experienced the loss of many brothers and sisters from suicide, in what veterans call ‘the war at home.’”

With that, Coey changed her major to psychology and added an emphasis in substance abuse. She also minored in Spanish and Latin American Studies.

In 2018, Coey graduated from Viterbo with her master’s degree in mental health counseling with an emphasis in community health and wellness. She held an internship with the Salvation Army that led to her role there as shelter manager, and then Coey was director of social services for the Salvation Army. At Brighter Living Experience (ABLE), she was executive director for two years.

Meanwhile, she worked to create Coey Consulting, a unique private practice that focuses on nonprofit development. “In the social services world in general, there are not enough mental health practices in place to help take care of employees. Non-profits are good about caring about other people, but not necessarily about caring for their employees who are busy making the world a better place,” she explained.

Coey Consulting emphasizes community health and wellness through creating a positive culture, discovering ways to lift employee morale, mitigate burnout, and discussing and understanding wages and staffing concerns.

Recently, she started working with Melissa Klein ’11, who owns the Thinking Leaders Collective, LLC. “Melissa is a mentor and she is coaching me on expanding my business,” Coey said.

Coey shared that Viterbo’s small class sizes, opportunities to work one-on-one with faculty, and values were a good fit. “You don’t go through deployment without finding God,” she said. The mental health counseling program’s structure helped Coey to build the confidence she needed for the field. “The mock counseling sessions really set the Viterbo program apart,” she explained. “It gives you a space to practice different scenarios that are real-life.”

Coey and her husband, Justin Bernau, who served in the U.S. Army, have two young daughters and call La Crescent, Minn. home.