Nova To LJCDS Students: Desire and Drive Is Key

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Tina Nova is a farmer's daughter. She grew up among the irrigated fields of California's San Joaquin Valley in a time when girls took homemaking, boys took science courses and most never left the farms.

Nova's father believed in hard work and her vacations from school were filled with early mornings and hours mowing fields on a blue Ford tractor.

"I had a lot of time to daydream on that tractor,'' Nova told a group of Upper School students last week in the third of this year's Entrepreneurial Leadership lectures.

Those daydreams envisioned a different future. Nova talked her way out of homemaking and into mechanical drawing – the first girl in her Delano school to take that class. When offered a junior college route, she risked an application to the UC Irvine and, once there, took remedial courses to make up for what she didn't get in high school. "I just kept working,'' she said.

Today she is a successful scientist and entrepreneur, heading maturing bio-tech start-up Genoptix and is helping revolutionize the way diagnostic medicine is executed in America. She told the students not to be dissuaded from their goals by academic challenges or less-than-perfect grades.

"I do a lot of hiring,'' she said, "and I will take drive over grades anytime.''

Nova's message was to find what you love and dedicate yourself to that work. Originally planning to be a medical doctor, Nova realized she much preferred the science of the laboratory to the clinical work and she changed to pursue a doctorate rather than a medical degree.

"I am so glad I did that and chose what I wanted to be,'' she told the students, ''instead of pursuing what others wanted me to be.''

As a young scientist working for San Diego-based Hybritech, she was awarded the patent for the now-famous "PSA'' test doctors still use to diagnose prostate cancer in men.

"I got $100 for winning that patent,'' Nova says and laughs. "It meant many millions of dollars to the company.''

Nova learned at each stop along her work career and moved from bench scientist to director of research, and eventually to chief operating officer and now chief executive officer. Along the way, she pioneered better tracking of medical samples, adding diagnostic analysis to laboratory testing services and is now working to link medication use with patient's genetic predisposition.

Her message to the students was as grounded as the farm work of her youth: "Do what you love. Work hard. Worker harder than anyone around you.''

Nova believes her modest beginnings brought a focus and determination that has led to her success and she advised the Country Day students to take full advantage of the education they are receiving.

"In the end, your life and your work is what you make of it,'' she said. "You need to enjoy the journey, to enjoy everything it takes to get you where you want to go.''

Nova was the third entrepreneur in this year's lecture series. Earlier Judy Muller-Cohn and Ernest Rady met with Upper School students.