Rosemarie Romero

My professional journey has been anything but conventional. I graduated high school in 1987 with dreams of becoming an architect, but life had different plans for me. That summer, I became pregnant and then faced a life-threatening medical crisis when I was discovered to have a brain aneurysm that was leaking down my spine. At six months pregnant, I passed out while getting ready for work, and my sister found me slumped over the bathroom sink. Three weeks later, I underwent a 22-hour microscopic brain surgery at Bentown Hospital, and just three months after that surgery, I had my baby. The doctor told me to do nothing but take care of my baby during my two-year recovery period. While my high school friends were in college enjoying spring break, I was recovering from surgery and caring for my newborn. By 1991, I knew I wanted more than fast food work, so I enrolled in Computech Business School through a government-paid program and earned my word processing certification. I had already taken typing in high school, which gave me a foundation. After working at Walmart for a couple of years, I decided I wanted to pursue an office career so I could be home with my kids at a certain day and time. I started as a scheduler at an examination management firm that did paramedical exams for insurance companies. After about a year, I got laid off, but then became a secretary and just kept growing into different roles. For the past 30 years since 1993, I have been working as an administrative assistant, with some executive assistant roles, though most of those were temporary. I am completely self-taught in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint - I never took a course for any of them - and I usually test between 93 and 98 percentile in these programs. I have been recognized as Employee of the Month at multiple companies throughout my career. Like I always say, I have just been trying to live my life and learn and grow into my roles.