ZONTA CLUB OF THE PIKES PEAK AREA

Member Profiles Sharon Roggy

My story begins in the central Illinois farm town of LeRoy-one of the richest soils in the nation and an ideal setting for a happy childhood in a small town. I credit my parents with giving me that most important of all life's gifts-a happy and secure childhood-which forms the basis for what we can give to others later in life.

The goal of my young life back then was to marry and produce children, and I was well on the way to fulfilling it with a local boy to whom I became engaged promptly following high school. I ran amuck when I took time out to explore a little piece of the world outside LeRoy and discovered that there were lots more to life. I returned from my Spring Break adventure in Florida, broke the engagement and escaped by moving to Miami, FL where I began college.

I met my first husband, Ben, in Miami. He had just returned from a stint in the Peace Corps in Nigeria and was teaching at an inner city school in Miami. Political activism was natural for him and intriguing to me and soon we were both involved in the issues of the day-race, education, war. We were married while I was still in undergraduate school at the University of Miami. I love to tell the story of how our son, Paul, was born during finals week in 1970. I was the only co-ed at "Sun and Fun U" waddling around in a mini-skirted maternity dress!

Our travels took us to Ohio where Ben got a Master's from Antioch College, through Washington, DC for a brief internship, back to Miami for a few more years and then on to Massachusetts where both Ben and I got advanced degrees. Mine was in Educational Research (don't ask me why-it seemed like a good idea at the time).

During the five years we were in Massachusetts we became involved in the efforts to deinstitutionalize youth in detention centers and mental facilities. We took into our home a succession of teenaged foster children whose issues included drugs, poverty, abuse and neglect. I joined with other local women to create a new non-profit organization, Sojourn, Inc., to serve the specific needs of young women. We developed the first independent living program for girls who had outgrown their ability to live as children in foster homes but who were still not ready to function without some supervision and assistance. I became the first Educational Coordinator for the organization, developing a Life Skills Curriculum to teach everything from birth control to balancing a checkbook.

Our daughter Stephanie was born in 1977 and shortly thereafter we moved to Colorado. My brother lived in Ft. Collins and without so-much as a job interview, we packed all our belongings into a U-Haul truck and loaded ourselves and two children aboard and off we went with boundless optimism about the prospects for the future (it was the 70's after all).

We settled in Colorado Springs because of a job offer. I accepted a position as the Director for what was then the Domestic Violence Prevention Center (now TESSA). From there I joined the Penrose Hospital staff as the Staff Planner, eventually working my way up over the next 15 years to the position of Vice President for Strategic Planning and Business Development. When consolidation moved my job to Denver, I chose to take the severance package and explore new opportunities.

I found AIG VALIC-a financial services organization specializing in retirement plans for public and private organizations and have been happily pursuing this field for the past eight years.