By Karen M. Sughrue | Sep 27, 2016
My main career has been in information technology – I was “the computer guy.” Living in rural, northern Minnesota, good tech jobs were scarce, but I managed to piece things together – working with businesses, a hospital, and teaching tech courses at a local...
By Karen M. Sughrue | Sep 20, 2016
My background is in media sales and advertising, and I’ve had the opportunity to work with some great black media entrepreneurs. But too often, this country’s young black men are marginalized, vilified and demonized. I wanted to reimagine them as...
By Karen M. Sughrue | Sep 20, 2016
I had a long career in technology at IBM Research and, after leaving IBM, I wanted to turn my passion for community service into a new career. Discovering Encore.org and its programs led to my applying for an Encore Fellowship, a program that matches skilled, seasoned...
By Karen M. Sughrue | Sep 20, 2016
When I was 60, in 2005, I was at a community-organizing meeting in Los Angeles with organizers from all over the country. Sister Pearl Ceasar, an organizer from Texas, was telling us how teachers there were doing home visits with extraordinary results. Reading scores,...
By Karen M. Sughrue | Sep 16, 2016
On a family vacation to Tanzania, we were shocked to discover that, in some villages, newborn babies were being thrown into open latrines and gravel pits, left in empty houses, and buried alive by the roadside. My husband and I were moved to do something about it for...