As a little girl, Katie Dusenberry was as shy as they come. But growing up with parents active in the community, she always had “a sense of duty to do something” she really believed in.
So when she felt Tucson’s quality of education was threatened, she did something bold: She set aside her shyness and embraced the beginning of a life of public service as an elected official — in addition to her day job and raising four children.
“No music, no P.E., no art, no anything in the schools,” Dusenberry said, recalling one of her opponent’s plans for the Tucson Unified School District. “Just reading, writing, arithmetic...[He] didn’t want anything that I felt was good for [improving] education.”
Dusenberry, co-owner of Horizon Moving Systems, served for 11 years on the TUSD board, where she handled problems related to growth and desegregation.
“It’s really interesting: When you’re elected to a position like that… there’s really no training that you can take,” Dusenberry said. “You’re just thrust into it and you get on-the-job training...I was fascinated with that.”
Dusenberry received her bachelor’s of science in nutrition and hospital dietetics from Iowa State University, but ended up working for her husband, Bruce, at Horizon Moving Systems shortly after. As she worked her way up in the company, she also stepped into larger elected positions in Tucson.
In 1976 she became the first woman elected to the Pima County Board of Supervisors. During her term, she is often remembered for her work seeking to combine city and county sewer systems. It’s a feat others thought was impossible and that took three years to get all parties’ approval.
The Dusenberry-River Branch Library of the Pima County Library System is named in her honor.
Later, Dusenberry was appointed to the board of the Arizona Department of Transportation, through which she helped rural communities be heard in the legislature.
Dusenberry remembers the 1950s, 60s and 70s as a “great time” when boards were looking to add a woman, because almost all boards were men only. She takes pride in being the first woman to serve on several boards by invitation, including the Tucson Electric Power Board and the Great American Savings and Loan Board. She served as the first woman president of the Tucson Airport Authority and the Rotary Club of Tucson.
“It’s a challenge to work with men,” she said. “I think sometimes women who are real outspoken and strong in that way frighten them...I certainly wasn’t moderate in my views, but I tried to express them without being too demanding.”
She added, “I became part of the team, not ‘just a woman.’”
Woman of Influence: Kim Fernandez: Helping create the sculptures we live and play in
By Lauren LePage, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, March 13, 2009
For Kim Fernandez, architecture is “a sculpture that we live in, work in, play in” — an integral part of the community that helps preserve culture while emphasizing Tucson’s natural beauty.
Fernandez, principal of ABA Architects since 1997, shines as a woman of influence in her contributions to architecture and to Tucson. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Arizona in the early 1990s. She has continued to contribute to her field through the American Institute of Architects, where she has served in numerous positions on the state and local levels, including president.
As the statewide president of the American Institute Architects, Fernandez took on the issue of cultural and racial diversity within her field by arranging a conference for the Western states. A self-described Army brat, she developed a deep appreciation for all places, peoples, cultures, textures and colors while growing up on bases around the United States and in Germany. She still has “the hunger to travel” and said she enjoys the “whole” that a greater collective brings to any one thing.
“Each time you do a project, the experience that you bring to the table — that next project is a culmination of all that you’ve learned before,” Fernandez said. “So it makes each new project more exciting than the last.”
While Fernandez is passionate about architecture, she also serves on multiple boards in Tucson that focus on women and children or culture and humanities, she said. She is currently a board member and chair of the Arizona Humanities Council, and she has served in several positions for the Greater Tucson Leadership Board, the Junior League of Tucson and the Arizona Youth Partnership.
Fernandez said she focuses her community service on “things that speak to me from the heart,” and that ABA Architects strives “to also give back to the community and service to boards and also to our profession. It’s just been a very important part of who we are as a firm.”
Fernandez emphasized her husband and family’s support in her work, adding, “I like to recognize that any kind of architecture that I might have been involved in at any time is a result of a huge amount of people’s efforts, not [just] my own.”
Woman of Influence: Cindy Godwin: Independent marketer looks forward to new challenges
By Kymberly Harris, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, March 13, 2009
Godwin Marketing Consulting founder Cindy Godwin finds joy in being self-employed.
“I wanted to be able to control my own destiny,” she said.
Godwin pursued her goal of independence in 1998 after leaving another marketing company she helped establish, LP&G Inc. This time she wanted to be on her own working with local businesses and nonprofits.
What Godwin loves most about the marketing and consulting business, she said, is that she is always learning something new.
“I love new challenges, and getting a new client is like starting a new job,” she says, and her clientele continues to
expand.
Godwin is currently a consultant for the innovative, “Mrs. Green Goes Mainstream,” talk radio show, newsletter promoting an environmental and healthy way of life.
“It’s about working to help people save the planet and do what’s good for themselves, and make that a growing business,” Godwin said. “We want to change people’s habits, and make them aware of how their choices impact the environment.”
Her consulting with Gina Murphy-Darling, aka Mrs. Green, has gone far beyond just work. Godwin has actually adapted green living into her own lifestyle.
“That’s what’s fun about this,” she said. “Now I’m becoming more conscious of green living and making small changes over time too.”
She takes reusable bags to the grocery store, uses aluminum water bottles and drinks organic milk.
Consulting with Mrs. Green is one of Godwin’s major focuses right now, she said, and it is a very exciting time.
But Godwin’s achievements stretch much farther than to just her business’ success. She is on the board for the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona and the Reading Seed Children’s Literacy Program, and serves as the community service director for the Tucson Rotary Club, which is one of her favorite roles.
“I’m nuts about Rotary,” she said. “It’s fabulous to be part of an organization that has a grassroots way of getting things done at a local level.”
The motto for the rotary club, she said, is, “service above self,” and Godwin has been about service as long as she can remember.
“It’s a pleasure for me to be of service in any way I can in Tucson,” she said. “I feel very fortunate to live in this wonderful, supportive community and am able to give back.”
Woman of Influence: Charlotte Harris: Giving of herself reaps rewards
By Kymberly Harris, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, March 13, 2009
“There’s something about giving that makes you feel like you are the person who is receiving,” says Charlotte Harris, president of the Tucson Rotary Club.
Harris, who has been part of the 250-member club for eight years, volunteers more than 40 hours a week.
“It’s like having a job,” she said.
In addition to leading the club, Harris is a mother of three, former president of the Junior League of Tucson, chairwoman of the Diocese of Tucson Sexual Misconduct Review Board and a reading coach for the Reading Seed Children’s Literacy Program, where she works on a semi-weekly basis with two students at Robison Elementary School in the Tucson Unified School District.
Harris influenced a collaboration between the Rotary club and literacy center in 2005, when she was placed on the initial board and aided in grant writing. The literacy center, which originally served a couple of schools, now has about 1,000 trained volunteers who go into 114 schools in the community. The volunteers provide reading lessons to students in first to third grade.
Working with children is the best part, Harris said.
“When I go to the classroom, my students know whoever has their book and gets to me quickest is the first I’ll work with,” she said, “and you feel like one million bucks to see the kids racing to you.”
But Harris’ contributions to local schools goes back long before her involvement with the Reading Seed when she was the director of development for Salpointe Catholic High School. During her 15 years there Harris helped raise $15 million through fundraising, establishing an alumni association and an annual funding program. She also implemented the Salpointe Catholic Education Foundation.
Those past achievements have helped Harris move forward, anticipating success in the upcoming fundraising efforts she is organizing, such as the Tucson Classics Car Show, which brought in 20,000 people last year. Half of the proceeds from the October 2009 event will go to the Reading Seed.
Harris sees no end to her volunteering and her passion for the community.
“Tucson is a very special place and being able to do things especially for children, those less fortunate and our aging population, it’s important,” Harris said. “The reality is that the more you do for others, it comes back to you, and the experience feels good.”
Woman of Influence: Susie Huhn: Working to do better by our children
By David A. Robbins, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, March 13, 2009
"I’m a jack of all trades," said Susie Huhn, executive director of Casa de los Niños, when asked what she does at the shelter which takes in, feeds and clothes children in dangerous situations.
Huhn is also president and founding member of the Arizona Chapter of the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse.
She explained one of the things which inspired her to dedicate her life to helping children was an experience she had volunteering for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.
She was the big sister to an 8 year-old girl named Stephanie who was living in foster care. She was born with multiple handicaps and became a ward of the state at birth. Huhn saw first hand how difficult it was to be raised by a system rather than a family. She vowed then that, as a community, more could be done to help children.
"For a country as rich in resources as we are - we could do better for children," she said.
It is this belief that has driven Huhn to lobby for a White House Conference on Children and Youth – something which hasn’t been held since 1971 under President Nixon.
Working with members of Congress, Huhn helped introduce a bill to convene a new conference on children. Versions were introduced last month in the House and this month in Senate.
She said she would like to see how the money the government spends on protecting children change, as well.
"There are estimates that we spend $250 billion annually on child abuse – but only 10 percent of that allocation goes to prevention. We want to give parents better and smarter support so they can be the best parents they can be from the get go."
Huhn is the mother of two; Michael, 20, and Alex, 16.
"I try to expose them to what my work world looks like and show them how important it is to give back," she said. "It’s important to show them how blessed we are."
Woman of Influence: Lisa Lovallo: Always seeking out a new challenge
By David A. Robbins, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, March 13, 2009
If you walk into a board room at Cox Communications offices in Tucson and ask to speak with Brat Poison, you might get a few strange looks but Lisa Lovallo, vice president and system manager, will look up and find your eyes.
Lovallo is currently halfway through the required training to join the Tucson Roller Derby league, where she hopes to be drafted in the first round on March 29. Her derby name is Brat Poison.
“That is true. That is true,” she said, laughing when asked about it.
Lovallo has already a varied list of accomplishments including running a business, North American Enterprises with her father, an election for state Senate, serving as director of Student Affairs and Advancement at the University of Arizona, and now her current position with Cox Communications.
The experience of working with her father, importing food from all over the world, is what taught her to take risks and be entrepreneurial.
“My mom thinks I’m 80 percent my dad and 20 percent her. Learning to solve problems has really been my relationship with my dad,” she says. “Whether that’s been changing careers or going to work for a big company, both my dad and my mother were very supportive of it.”
Before becoming the director of Student Affairs and Advancement, Lovallo chaired a capital campaign for the Southern Arizona Center for Sexual Assault. By 2004, she had helped raise $2.5 million to build a new building for the center on Country Club Road and Pima St.
In her time at the UA, Lovallo piloted a program to bring the programs offered at the Strategic Alternative Learning Techniques Center to Catalina Magnet High School.
“The SALT Center takes kids with learning disabilities and helps improve their success rates in higher education. We were working very diligently to try and take that model off the footprint of campus and bring it into a high school environment,” Lovallo said.
Lovallo played shooting guard for the UA during her freshmen and sophomore years, in 1983-1984.
Woman of Influence: Diana Madaras: Art is her calling for making change
By David A. Robbins, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, March 13, 2009
In 1999, Diana Madaras sold her sports marketing company that had successfully been coordinating tournaments from the Professional Golfers Association and decided to become a full-time artist. She opened her own art gallery.
That year she had 100 customers who bought everything from a box of note cards to an original painting.
“I didn’t know if it was going to work or not,” said Madaras. “I just knew that was what I had to do. It was such a strong calling for me, it’s almost like I didn’t have a choice.”
In 1999, Madaras was the president of the Boys and Girls Club of America. She is currently a senior member.
“I believe in the cause. It’s an organization that really provides leadership, mentoring and hope for kids,” she said.
Also in 1999, Madaras started a charity called Art for Animals, which to date has raised $150,000 for animal causes such as Saving Animals from Euthanasia, Fair Founding for Animals in Risk, and Therapeutic Riding of Tucson.
Madaras literally grew up in a veterinary hospital. Her father started his own practice, and opened his own hospital with an adjacent apartment, only a door away from the animals.
“From the time I could stand, I was over there on my little stool watching them do surgery,” she explained. “My job was to hand feed the injured wild life.”
Madaras found her inspiration to begin painting professionally on a vacation to the Bahamas in 1992. After she arrived home and began painting again, the serving dean of the University of Arizona College of Architecture invited her on a month long painting trip to Greece.
“It changed my life, it did,” she said. “I saw the world in a whole different way. It was euphoric.”
Woman of Influence: Donna J. Zazworsky: Working to help make diabetes' care easier on patients
By David A. Robbins, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Friday, March 13, 2009
Donna J. Zazworsky, author of the “Handbook of Diabetes Management,” is a registered nurse who devotes her time to nursing patients and working on nursing systems.
“I teach people about picking things up early,” said Zazworsky. “Teaching people prevention is so important. That’s what community health nursing is all about.”
Zazworsky helped develop a system for Carondelet Health Network that has become a national model. Its purpose is to help people manage their diabetes.
Some diabetes patients in need of a full screening must make multiple appointments at different offices. Zazworsky helped build a system of diabetes day clinics where patients can come have their eyes and feet examined, get lab work done and learn about medical nutrition.
“All in one swoop,” she said proudly.
Part of these day clinics is a telemedicine system. This allows nurses to take pictures of patient’s eyes and electronically send them to an ophthalmologist who can quickly diagnose conditions, such as diabetic retinopathy.
These day clinics and telemedicine systems have brought treatment to remote villages in northern Arizona, as well as smaller cities such as Nogales and Douglas. Best of all, she said, the nurses involved in the clinics are now teaching other nurses how to address these same conditions.
One of the most rewarding parts of doing these clinics in small towns and villages, she said, is figuring out how to accomplish what they need to with limited resources.
“In the community, people control their own environment. They are in charge. We’re just guests. To me, it’s exciting to figure out how to help them heal and do it in their environment.”
Zazworsky has stepchildren and godchildren, as well as two dogs named Paco and Bandit. She volunteers her time to both the Honor Society for Nursing and the Academy of Nursing.
