Her Story
About Maria
Maria Andrew serves as Director of Community Relations at Life Home Care, where she has worked for four years. She began her career in home care and healthcare in 2004 as a coordinator at Bayada, advancing through positions in operations, human resources, and sales at Senior Home Care before joining her current employer. Andrew earned a hospitality degree from Johnson and Wales in 1994 and obtained certification as a home health aide; she also pursued nursing studies without completing the program. She maintains active involvement as a volunteer with the Essex Regional Ethical Committee for over five years. Andrew attributes her professional success to the strong work ethic modeled by her immigrant parents and her commitment to follow-through and accountability.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Maria
01What do you attribute your success to?
My success is attributed to the way that I was raised. My parents were immigrants, I'm first generation, Ecuadorian-American, and my parents' work ethic was such that I hardly ever saw my mom take a sick day off. There was never an excuse or reason why they weren't working. Family was very important, so they were able to balance that work and a family lifestyle. So, I attribute it to the way that I was raised, my parents, my family.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Not to take things so too hard. When you're working in this industry, there's a lot of emotions that are involved. A director of mine giving me the advice of, don't let it get so to a point when somebody's giving you some criticism, don't take it so personally, just accept it, and then do some introspection, see how that fits into your everyday, and see how you can use it instead of being upset by it, using it constructively, but not to let what anybody else is telling you hurt you to the point where it's going to affect your trajectory in this industry. And just taking things with a grain of salt.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say that you have to be your sincere, authentic self, and you gotta love what you do. You've gotta be able to wake up when it's sub-zero temperature outside and say, you know, I really want to help people, and that's where my drive comes in. My advice to people that are breaking into the industry is, you gotta love what you do. You have to have a passion of loving what you do. Do you have a passion of helping people? If it's just money-driven, it's never going to stick. So, find something that you really love doing, and if you love helping people, then everything else will not be so difficult.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge is competition on an agency level, and competition with private aides working in this space post-COVID. The biggest opportunity is that this agency has other divisions allowing me to leverage the fact that we do have other supportive services for clients so the care is more holistic.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Values of following through to what you decided to do. Follow-through is really important. Being accountable for what you say that you're going to do. Even though you've got a phone call, an email, you know, not putting up excuses, making sure you're following through and really doing the job that you say that you're going to do. Those values in home and at work.
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