Norma Molestina

I have been serving as an executive director for a chamber of commerce for 3 years now, and I also work as a job developer and internship specialist with the Young Adult Opportunity Center, which is part of Goodwill International Industries. When I started with the chamber, it was only a year old and in its beginning stages with just 15 members and no physical location. Within one year, I was able to grow the chamber from 15 members to 100 members and secure a headquarters location for the organization - something I'm really proud of as one of my achievements. Before this, I led a non-profit organization for the Hispanic community for about 6 years, and prior to that, I held a teaching position at a Hispanic church for 22 years where my role was to develop leadership, particularly developing women in leadership, and discovering entrepreneurial talent within that group of women. I would organize events so they could display their entrepreneurship. My main area of expertise today is connection and networking - those two go hand-in-hand. I connect business owners to the community, or the community to business owners, or just connect individuals to agencies, whatever it is that they need. My typical day starts at 5:30 in the morning, and by 7 or 8 o'clock I'm sending emails and going to meetings. I often have multiple events to attend - sometimes three different events in one day - and my day can end around 8pm or so, at least 2 or 3 times a week. I'm very much involved with the re-entry program and second chance opportunities through my work with Goodwill, learning about criminal justice, which is very meaningful to me.