[Girls & Boys Town]

Besides the cheerful sunlight streaming in through the wooden window blinds, two things stand out in the office of Brenda Lee-Wood, Site Support Services Coordinator for Girls and Boys Town of Southern California since 1999. Those things are the many shelves packed with notebooks and the statue of Mickey Mouse as the classic Sorcerer's Apprentice.

A native of Philadelphia, Brenda joined the Air Force and was discharged with the rank of sergeant from March Air Force Base in Southern California. She loved the area, decided to stay, and earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Cal State Long Beach.

She embarked on her career in child care working for the Wilmington Boys Home, where she began as a counselor and progressed to supervisor. After Wilmington, she moved to a 40-bed residential facility in Long Beach operated by an organization called ChildNet. After a brief stint in private investigations, she joined Guadalupe Homes in the foster care organization's Inland Empire office. There she served as case load manager, recruiting and training families. She became a regional director with a geographic area covering Orange County, Long Beach, Covina, Lancaster and Reseda. After 11 years with Guadalupe Homes, she decided to seek a smaller environment and found it at the Aviva Center in Hollywood.

Along the way, Brenda became a certified paralegal and was interested in applying those skills to child care. It was at that point that she saw an opening at Girls and Boys Town of Southern California. Based on her extensive experience, she landed what was a brand new position at the agency and an opportunity to build something from the ground up.

The title Site Support Services Coordinator is a bit deceiving. In that position, Brenda manages a very broad range of critical functions for the agency. They include licensing requirements, county agency contracts and audits, audit records, facility reviews, case records, internal and external program evaluations, insurance policies, standards and proof of performance for accreditation from the national Council on Accreditation, training programs which are monitored by the state and coordinated with the Girls and Boys Town national training model, and regular reporting to both the local and national Boards of Trustees. So it's no wonder that Brenda's office is home to a massive collection of well organized notebooks and files.

Asked what she likes most about working at Girls and Boys Town, she said, "I love what I do, working behind the scenes as a silent partner on behalf of the children. I'm proud every time we pass an audit."

She observed that Girls and Boys Town is a friendly, considerate and kind environment with open feedback and the opportunity to make decisions that have an impact. Brenda also noted the close relationship and interaction between the local affiliates and the national campus.

Brenda recently got married, and now her silky terrier Corbel will need to make room for a new presence in the house.

And that statue of Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer's Apprentice? To Brenda, it symbolizes the pride she has felt in "making magic out of thin air" as she has built her position at Girls and Boys Town of Southern California.

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