Are you a person who personally or professionally has found the place that you honestly know that you were meant to be?
I recently met Deborah Rudel, the new CEO of the Fox Valley United Way, and found that she positively knows she is such a person. Her new position fuels an obvious passion to help people and families in our community.
As we visited, I found that Rudel had traveled a circuitous professional route before finding her true devotion to serving others.
She graduated from high school and studied at a community college in the suburban area, and then pursued paralegal studies for two years. It became a first stepping stone toward a service career.
She began work in the financial industry, and also had gotten married and had begun to raise her two sons.
But another milestone in Rudel’s journey to a career in service occurred when she used her legal background to begin working for attorney Donald Marcum.
“He affected my life more than he could have ever imagined,” she said. “He was a guardian ad litem, a volunteer attorney who represented children and their interests in court. That started to stoke what I’m really passionate about, and I wanted to dedicate my work life to that.”
After also gaining some background in event planning, Rudel found that United Way was looking for someone to help run its community events.
“I did some research about United Way, and thought ‘this is what I want to do,'” she said. She began her work with the Fox Valley United Way in February of 2006.
Rudel said that her new work exposed her to what life in Aurora was, and that it opened her eyes and changed her perspective on what she wanted to dedicate her life to.
“I was going through a divorce at that time, and it changed the whole trajectory of dedication to my career,” she said. “In a way, it was a blessing as it allowed me to focus on the things really important to me: my sons and what has become my community, Aurora.
“Becoming part of this community became a super positive move for me,” she said. “There was so much out there to which I could contribute that made a difference. My priority became giving love and sharing.”
She became the Fox Valley United Way’s director of administration about 12 years ago, and its director of operations about three years after that. In the latter role, she worked with applications of other social service agencies (the Fox Valley United Way now supports 23 of them) requesting funding, and learned what the organizations did to assist community needs.
“Meeting a lot of other social service and non-profit agencies allowed me to learn a lot of this community’s needs and opportunities to advance the common good,” she said.
This past September, the CEO of the Fox Valley United Way retired, and its board asked Rudel to become interim director. After providing her vision of the structure of the organization going forward, she was invited to become the new CEO.
“For half a second, I thought ‘you don’t really want to take on all that responsibility,'” she said. “Then I thought that this is literally what I know I was meant to do. It is my opportunity to make a contribution, and I would be remiss to pass it up.
“I believe so wholeheartedly in what we do that I could never dream of walking away from the opportunity to support families to strive for a healthy, stable and strong future,” she said. “The children of those families become the future of our community and nation.”
Rudel’s dedication and love for this community have not gone unnoticed by Aurora’s volunteer organizations and their leaders. Dick Schindel, with his wife Susan, is involved with many service efforts in our city, and has gotten to know Rudel’s commitment and devotion very well.
More Top Picks Best Winter Puffer Jackets For Men
“Deborah is everything one would desire in a leader: knowledgeable, credible, authentic and straight-forward,” Schindel said. “When volunteering, I was always impressed with her empathy, compassion, kindness and generosity with everyone she met.
“Doing her best for the Fox Valley United Way has always been her focus,” he said.
Tom Strong is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.