Tracie Hodge

I attribute my success to having empathy and sympathy for the communities I serve, because I can see myself in a lot of those situations and family members too. Growing up in a very small rural town with a population less than 2,000, I experienced hardship firsthand - we were one paycheck away from losing everything, and that actually happened to us. I was one of the blessed and fortunate ones who actually made it out and was able to be somewhat successful. I set goals for myself, and I'm the type of person that if you tell me I can't do something, I will do it. I'll never forget when my high school principal told me I was going to end up in the projects with a bunch of children, and everything in me wanted to prove him wrong. I personally think that because I wanted to prove him wrong, that was one of the things that gave me the incentive to be who I am today. My mentor Claire Benjamin was also very influential - she encouraged me to go back to school and helped me recognize my natural abilities. I also believe that obtaining my bachelor's, master's, and Certified Fraud Examiner certification moved me forward in my career. But most importantly, I work from the heart and lead with empathy, which drives me to ensure we have the funding to serve people who would otherwise be lost in the community.

I would definitely say you have to work in an organization that you feel passionate about. Don't ever stay in a job that's a dead-end job - if you know you're not going anywhere, go ahead and move away from that job, because you'll never be happy there and you'll never advance. That actually happened to me when I was at Florida Healthy Kids - I stayed there for 8 years in that same role with nowhere to go. Make sure it's something that you can handle and that you want, and if you have children, don't ever work a job that you have to be ashamed to mention to your child. Set goals for yourself and actually work towards those goals, and make sure you try to accomplish them. I always tell people that when you obtain a degree, it is just proving that you can set a goal and accomplish it. And don't look down on candidates just because they don't have a degree - just because they don't have a degree doesn't mean they wouldn't be a great fit for your organization or a great investment for your team. I hired one of my accountants who wasn't degreed because she had transferable skills I could use to better the department. Transferable skills matter, and sometimes the school of hard knocks is the best education you can have.

The hardest thing is that we unfortunately have to turn people down because we max out with our funding. We're only allocated so much from the state of Florida, and we only receive so much from 340B pharmacy rebates, which have changed dramatically - 340B expenses went up and revenue went down because they restricted a lot of medications and took one of the higher dollar HIV medications off the formulary. Years prior, if grant funding ran out, we would still continue to serve clients and pay for it from our general admin funds, but we're not that fluid anymore. We don't have the funding to be able to do that. In a perfect world, I wish there was an unrestricted grant available that would allow us the opportunity to serve more clients so we don't have to turn anybody away. I remember one client we had to turn away who was living in a house that really should have been condemned, and we just couldn't help her. It's one of those things where you really want to just take money out of your pocket and find them a house, but we're not allowed to do that. One of the downsides to working here is that I become too emotionally attached to some of the situations we're involved in. If I could save the world, I honestly would, but I can't save everybody.