Healthy Focus Cory Allison '94, P'26 hopes to change the way hospitals and doctors approach surgical prep.

By Laura Lemon
March 18, 2025

As a veteran entrepreneur, Cory Allison ’94, P’26 tends to focus on solutions. That drive led her to found four businesses throughout her professional career and be a general partner at The JumpFund, a venture capital fund investing in female-led companies. She sees her problem-solving mentality as a way to maintain a constant professional challenge, keeping her job interesting and unpredictable. Her most recent goal: saving at least one life.

That tall order started in 2018, when a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA) shared with Allison the process of preparing an individual for general anesthesia. While surgical tools are sanitized, hands are washed and gloves and masks are worn, the tape that secures an airway device, such as an endotracheal tube, gets torn from a communal roll. According to the American Journal of Infection Control, 42 medical journals reported on relevant microbiological studies and case reports of infections and/or hospital-acquired outbreaks, with results showing that the rolls of tape can hold pathogens. In a situation where any microbe could have a serious consequence, the standard practice of care in American hospitals involves potentially contaminated tape.

“I was just flabbergasted,” Allison said. “It’s such a minor thing that people overlook. The key issue here is that many medical practitioners just don’t even think of it as an issue, which is sad. But sometimes we work on autopilot and don’t even see that this could be such a detrimental problem, potentially leading to death.”

Allison co-founded KelCor and started designing a prototype for an individually packaged tape product, creating the KC Airway Tape and the KC Eye Tape. The KC Eye Tape, which keeps a patient’s eyes closed during anesthesia, avoids sticking to the eyebrows through gentle adhesive. She designed the KC Airway Tape to be versatile for multiple different airway devices. Both products come individually packaged to avoid cross-contamination and reduce health care-associated infection risks.

“I believe this device is something that really could impact public health,” Allison said. “It’s difficult for me to not keep going, even though this has already been a seven-year journey. My son, Spratt ’26, said the other day, ‘At least you’re working on something that’s meaningful, and you could actually save somebody’s life.’”

Allison registered her products as intellectual property, tested them, refined them and found a manufacturer. Now, she’s meeting with hospitals and doctors to pitch her products. While getting hospitals to change their systems feels like rolling a boulder up a hill, Allison believes strongly in her mission, especially when she hears of people losing their loved ones from infections following a surgery, like a colleague whose father died of complications from COVID-19.

“That’s why I get energized,” she said. “I tell myself, ‘Keep fighting. Even though this is hard because it’s worth it.’ Even just one life … ”

Though Allison’s company focuses on medical innovation, she graduated from Washington and Lee University with a degree in psychology and later earned an MBA in information systems from Georgia State University. Despite pursuing a career in entrepreneurship, Allison wouldn’t change her major.

“My college degree has done wonders for me in ways that I didn’t really appreciate until I was older,” she said. “I believe soft skills really trump technical skills, because you can always learn the technical skills. If you graduate from Washington and Lee, you’re smart enough to pick up anything that you really desire to learn. It’s the soft skills that you really need to think critically and lead in your workplaces.”

Allison gives back to the university in countless ways, from serving on the Entrepreneurship Advisory Board (now as an emerita member), being a director of the Alumni Board (her four-year term started in July 2024) and serving as a Reunion Class Committee member and member of the Parents Leadership Council since 2022, along with her husband, Evan Allison ’93.

“Washington and Lee has made a huge impact on my life,” she said. “Both my husband and I love to be involved. The school gave me so much, so I go back at every opportunity.”