Greg Baisden never really knew what he wanted to do when he grew up. He was good at baseball and took a scholarship to South Suburban College where he spent a couple of years before heading to the University of Southern Indiana. Heading into his junior year, he was still kind of aimless until his mom stumbled on an interesting presentation at a job fair.
“She came home from that fair and said she had the perfect job for me,” Baisden recalled. “Someone from the veterinary office had come in and talked about what they do for a living. She told me all about it, and I thought it sounded like a perfect fit.”
So, already halfway through his undergraduate career, Baisden picked a focus – he decided to become a veterinarian.
“A lot of people in the veterinary field know they’re going to enter it pretty early on,” he said. “Most of my classmates told me they knew when they were basically toddlers, or 5, 6, or 7 years old.”
The decision worked out great. He finished school and has been a practicing veterinary doctor for more than a decade. He’s co-owner of the Hobart Animal Clinic, and just recently built a new practice in Schererville called Crossroads Animal Hospital.
“One of the things I love about being a vet is that you need to be a jack of all trades, where human doctors are often very specialized,” he said. “Every day, you never really know what’s going to walk through your door. It makes days challenging and it makes days fun.”
While his job is to treat pets and their ailments, he finds that he often plays a healing role for pet owners too.
“I love healing animals and I get to heal people as sort of a secondary part of that,” he said. “That’s because pets are just such an important part of so many families. That’s a huge deal, and it gives me a lot of personal satisfaction.”
He is also an animal activist outside of work, perhaps most notably serving as a supporter of the Wild Sheep Foundation.
“The foundation fights for wild sheep conservation out west,” he said. “Living where we live, there are not a lot of chances for people around the Region to see what it’s like out west, but my wife and I vacation out there all the time. It’s phenomenal to see so many things that you don’t get to see here on a daily basis.”
While you might not get to see the impressive sight of a wild desert bighorn in Indiana, Baisden noted that there are so many things about the Region that go underappreciated by many – including himself.
“You can drive just an hour to the Kankakee Sands and see what Indiana used to look like 100 years ago,” he said. “Then, we’re 15 minutes from Lake Michigan and beach resorts. There are wineries, and the Dunes, and tons of stuff to see and experience if you just take the time to do it. Growing up, that’s probably something that I didn’t do nearly enough of.”
In his urrent free time, Baisden helps with his stepson’s travel baseball and is an avid bow hunter. He lives in Westville with his wife, Lori, stepson Angelo, and daughter Arianna.