Give us a Brief Summary of Your Background; where you grew up, your career, how you located to Naples, maybe one thing we do not know about you.
I grew up in Perth Amboy, NJ and thoroughly enjoyed the town’s rich history dating back to the revolution and the proximity to both the “shore” and New York City. While in high school I had a leadership position in the local chapter of an international youth group and attended a month long leadership training program. It was there, at age 16, that I first learned about the field of social work. And the rest, as you could say, is “history.” After graduating from Boston University I attended Tulane University School of Social Work and upon receiving my Master of Social Work degree moved to New York, where I began working as a clinical social worker, providing mental health counseling in an agency similar to JFCS.
At that point in my early career I was focused on the clinical/mental health aspect of my profession and received additional training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. I went on to get my doctoral degree in social work from Yeshiva University in New York and continued to move up the administrative ladder in my field in management positions, had a small private practice and taught at several of the graduate schools of social work in New York. Somewhere during that busy schedule I found the time to meet and marry my husband and have twin daughters, now 26. While in New York I was an avid downhill skier (what am I doing in Florida?).
We moved from New York to Boca Raton in 1997 where I became the CEO of the local JFCS and then to Naples in 2010 when I was recruited for my current position as President/CEO of JFCS of Southwest Florida. It was a move we happily embraced since we were longtime vacationers in Sanibel, Captiva and Naples. While on the east coast of Florida we visited Naples often to “decompress.”
How did you get involved in GNL? How would you like to advance GNL and/or make our community better?
Shortly after arriving in Naples I began to hear about GNL from a variety of respected sources in the community. I was honored to be accepted as a member of Class XVIII and now I am honored to be a board member.
I am on the membership committee and look forward to working on the recruitment of new class members as well as playing a role in implementing the GNL strategic plan.
My professional responsibilities keep me quite busy and very involved in the community, particularly in the development of services for seniors, so for now I am limiting my board membership to GNL!
Anything else that you think our members might like to know about you?
I enjoy taking pictures of the beautiful natural areas surrounding us, including the Everglades, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, the Conservancy and the Botanical Gardens.
I also love music of all kinds. I am of the age where I was a real Beatles fan and I actually met them when I was 14. Of course this means that I have tickets to see Paul McCartney when he will be in Tampa in July!