Moving to Toms River with her family in time to start high school in 1985, Union County native Cherie Garrison, owner and founder of Hands on CPR Training in Toms River, had a pretty good idea of where she’d end up professionally.
“With a mother who was a nurse and a father who was a firefighter, I had health care in the blood!” joked Garrison, 47, a Toms River resident. “I went to Ocean County College, studied community education, and ultimately began working at a local hospital as a community educator, instructing others on such topics as arthritis, bike safety and CPR.” Three years later, in 2000, the hospital where she worked merged with another hospital system and the administration did away with her department, forcing Garrison to re-evaluate her path.