Adecia Ludeman

"I finally hit the sweet spot..."

I’m actually on my third career! I started out as a flight attendant for Delta and even learned Portuguese for our flights to Brazil. It was wonderful until 9/11 when I was furloughed. I discovered that I liked the world of business, so I went back to school for my MBA. I ran my own business for over six years, but I began to realize that I was not a salesperson; what I really loved was running my P&L every month. So, at age 40 I went back to school to learn accounting. I got my CPA license, and I did a lot of different types of accounting, including tax returns and investments.

Now that I’ve come to YPTC I feel like I finally hit the sweet spot. What I’m doing now checks all the boxes in terms of my level of satisfaction.

What I really love are the people I work with – not just my coworkers and the team at YPTC, but also the people who work for the nonprofits. In both groups there’s an attitude of helpfulness and of trying to make things better for everybody.

One thing that’s surprised me is that I have both an ambassador who meets with me as often as I want and a manager who checks in with me regularly. I don’t report to either one of them but it’s great having that level of support and having someone – or two – who listens. I also love the in-person meetings we have. They’re quite wonderful. I come away from the meetings feeling very supported and connected.