 |  | Donna has seen many iterations of our adult programming-- from the old-school, sheltered workshop days of the 90's to modern community-integrated person-centered best practice model of today. Donna brings her A-game to everything. When CLI used to be 98% about paid work & direct employment-- then Donna was the go-to person for keeping track of the thousands of loose ends that come with managing piece-rate employment for a large workforce. Now that the model is flipped and CLI is about 70% about meaningful integrated alternatives to paid work-- Donna spends most of her work day helping people access the community resources that interest them. Full-disclosure, CLI still provides direct employment paid work training through our subsidiary, "Firelands Local LLC"-- so we're still quite a bit about work-- and Donna is still a primary go-to in terms of keeping workshop jobs straight. We haven't paid less than Ohio's minimum wage since prior to 2015, so the piece-rate management headaches are behind us. However, now every CLI client who wants paid vocational training is paid at least $10.41/hour-- which means that a 20 person work crew has to produce more than $250/hour in real revenue or that crew is costing Firelands Local LLC real money and no business can afford to stay in business if it can't earn more than it spends.
Donna says that her favorite part of the job is being with the individuals that CLI serves. When she's not at work, she enjoys playing cards and spending time with family & friends. If she weren't working for CLI, Donna says she'd be "doing whatever I wanted" instead.
Donna's superpower is that she 100% understands CLI's mission and our business model-- and is committed to person-centered, deliverable outcomes that support both aspects. CLI was lucky to have Donna onboard 20+ years ago and we're doubly lucky to have her now in 2024!
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