How did I get so lucky to be partnered with the Howe Team?!  Coming up to the third-year anniversary of our partnership, I’ve been asked to introduce myself. Hard as that is for me to do verbally, it’s even harder to put it in writing! But I’ll give it a try!

Born and raised, until my mid-teens, on Staten Island, New York, once a beautiful little island of 13 miles long and 7 miles wide, I come from a long line of immigrants - Italian, Irish, Austrian – all coming through Ellis Island – all looking for the promise in the promised land.  My paternal and maternal families did just that, and life was good!  Life was idyllic, like the island we called home.  As the years went by, this once beautiful and idyllic island began to change for the worse, after the Verrazzano-Narrows bridge was completed, which connected our little island with the big city just across the New York Harbor. Up until then, if one worked in the city, you hopped on the ferry and crossed the river to get to work, and then back home again at the end of the day.  Once the bridge was built, many more started driving into the city. As time went on, people living in the city decided they wanted the life of living on an island away from the hustle and bustle of city life changing Staten Island to a very crowded and unfamiliar place.  My parents decided it was no place for us to continue living, so they made the difficult decision to move to North Carolina.  Although that decision would take us from a comforting and familiar familial life, the timing could not have been better. My Dad had retired from the New York Port Authority and my older brothers were already up and out on their own, so my sister and I moved with my parents when we were still in middle and high school. The first year was difficult and different than what I was used to, but after that we began to settle in, and have called North Carolina home for 48 years! My parents made the right decision!

Fast forward to graduating from high school, I was off to college at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, graduating with a BFA degree. I soon married and became the mom to two wonderful children. Once my children were in school, I slowly re-entered the work force, and after a few years of working in the school system, I needed a better paying job. A friend from church approached me one day and said there was a job opening at the bank where she worked.  The bank?!  An industry that never crossed my mind!  Long story short, I interviewed and was offered the job.  That first job has led to 28 years in the financial services industry.

It has been an interesting journey so far, both personally and professionally, from growing up on that once beautiful and idyllic little island to moving to North Carolina for a new life to winding up spending most of my professional life in the financial services industry. Life takes many twists and turns, but that is what makes it rich and full and interesting. It’s not just the experiences, it’s the people who are part of those experiences along the way, something I am grateful for every day when working with the Howe Team and their clients!