The Empowerment Center gives our warmest welcome to Sandy Gordon, our newest Board of Directors Member! Sandy moved to Nevada during high school and is a University of Nevada, Reno graduate. She currently works for Nevada State Development Corporation (NSDC), a nonprofit certified development company. Sandy is also a wedding officiant, loves the healing arts, and is an active member of several other community organizations. TEC Executive Director Roxanne DeCarlo shares, “Sandy Gordon is a long-time volunteer for The Empowerment Center, her talent, skills, and experience are impressive, and I am very excited to welcome her to our Board of Directors.”
Sandy has been watching The Empowerment Center since they purchased an old motel on Virginia Street, which would soon become TEC’s women-focused treatment center. She continued to hear about TEC for years, watching her financial industry colleagues donate to Marvel Way’s construction and hearing all about their contributions through friends throughout our Northern Nevada community.
Sandy thought “It would be amazing to join the Board and get more involved. I want to help as much as I can.” She has seen family members and others close to her struggle with addiction in their lives and “until you have gone through this with somebody, you have no idea. You may think you do, but you do not. It is truly a difficult yet sacred experience to be there for people as they transition through the toughest stages of addiction and recovery.”
Sandy Gordon comes to The Empowerment Center with 25+ years of experience as a banker. In her current work for Nevada State Development Corporation, she is a Business Development Officer, focusing on economic development for Nevada small businesses. At NSDC, Sandy and her colleagues advocate for small business owners, assisting them in getting commercial real estate financing through the federal government. Often, the Small Business Administration’s 504 Loans, through a government guaranteed program, are the best way to support business owners in achieving property ownership.
For many years, Sandy owned her own business as a tile and granite contractor/installer. Today, she explains, helping business owners realize the shift in their financial trajectory through the ownership of commercial real estate “gives me great pleasure in the work I do.”
In addition to her new role on The Empowerment Center’s Board of Directors, Sandy is also an integral part of several other Northern Nevada organizations. As the Chapter Secretary for CREW Northern Nevada, she encourages and unites women (and men) in all facets of the commercial real estate industry here in northern Nevada. She is a member of The Optimist’s local chapter and is on the Board for AVA Ballet and Theater. She especially loves watching AVA introduce children to the art of ballet and seed their creatives sides.
As a Board Member, Sandy looks forward to assisting any way she can, and especially hopes to lend her experiences with real estate and much more to the TEC team.
If you are looking to get involved in community work, Sandy recommends starting by thinking about what issues matter most to you personally and giving back to organizations in that space. “Getting involved with nonprofits is such a rewarding feeling, and I can’t wait to do more for The Empowerment Center.”