We recently connected with Erin Engelke and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Erin, thanks for joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

Growing up in a small town in Idaho, I don’t recall my Mom or Dad ever sitting me down on our burgundy and forest green 1980’s couch in the living room to have a conversation about resilience…what it is or how to recover from it after times of stress…or even the value of hard work.

I’m not alone in never receiving a formal “education” on how to rise above during the tough times of life. In fact, research has shown that while some people seem to come by resilience naturally, the behaviors can actually be learned.

That’s exactly what my parents did do for me. They modeled a life of resilience and tenacity and it was those moments, those memories, that shaped my own understanding of what resiliency looks like in the good times and the bad for all aspects of my life.

I’ll never forget when they unknowingly taught me the value of resiliency. It was a bright, summer morning and my sister and I were planning another bike ride to the local convenience store to buy our favorite candy (sixlets for me and Starburst for her!). Moments before we were headed out, my dad pulled into the driveway, far too early in the day to already be off of work. To our surprise, he despondently told my Mom he had been laid off. As the primary breadwinner for our family, this was not something we were prepared for. He promptly went upstairs to his bedroom, changed his clothes, and then returned to the living room, letting us know he was driving the 15 miles back into town to the temp agency to find work.

That was a pivotal moment for me.

Instead of moping around the house, getting angry or shutting down, he got to “work” finding whatever was needed for our family. Meanwhile, my Mom did the same, researching every possible option for her to find a paying job as well. She ended up winning a bid to take care of a massive 20 acre park, including mowing, cleaning the public restrooms and keeping the grounds litter free. She researched what supplies and equipment we would need, purchased them and then we all as a family got busy. I could tell you story after story about the days I scrubbed toilets and cleaned sinks filled with gnats and bugs!

Our family rose above. We bounced back. We stayed true to our family’s values, working together to do what was best for us all. Did we always enjoy it? Definitely not. Was it easy? Most certainly not. But we made the best of it, laughing, making memories and trying so many new things. My dad was steadfast and ultimately found another job, one that even paid him more.

And best of all, my sister and I learned valuable life skills that summer…ones that extended far beyond how to drive a riding lawn mower.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I began my career in corporate and agency public relations and marketing, with every intention of rising the corporate ladder (think Sex & the City!), but four years into my career, I had one of those lightbulb moments when I discovered I was, quick simply, not fulfilled and I needed to consider another sector of work. It was this transition that led me to the nonprofit space, leading the development and marketing teams for local, national and international nonprofit organizations – World Neighbors, Feed the Children, Sunbeam Family Services and now at Calm Waters Center for Children & Families where I serve as the agency’s youngest Executive Director. In all four of these roles, I stepped in at a time when change was greatly needed and when strong leadership was needed. I learned at a very young age how to build a team from the ground up – quickly identifying what needs to be done and rallying a staff to help execute a strategy. I love seeing my teams succeed! My success is their success. Most of all, I get such joy out of witnessing the change that can happen because of a powerful mission.

For the past five years, I have served as Executive Director of Calm Waters, central Oklahoma’s only grief center. I love the mission deeply! I have experienced my own tragic losses and grief throughout my life – from losing my father to suicide as a young girl and then later in life, struggling with infertility and losing four precious babies to miscarriage. It’s because of those losses that I am driven to do whatever it takes to provide the highest quality of grief support to the children and families we serve each day at our agency. Founded in 1992, we provide free support groups at our center and in schools for any child, teen or adult who has experienced a loss due to death, divorce, or other traumatic loss. Just within the past three years, however, I saw a need for us to expand our services to include grief counseling. The phone calls we were receiving each week from families desperate for more than our support groups was overwhelming and I just couldn’t sleep at night knowing we were the grief experts but didn’t have the capacity to serve them. With the support of our board and an incredible team, we launched our Grief Counseling Clinic and are now seeing over 150 counseling clients every month. I am so proud to also have introduced a never before done program at the Oklahoma County Detention Center, offering grief support groups to the men and women detained at the Jail, supporting their mental health to ensure they know how to process their grief and don’t have to resort to unhealthy coping skills. It fills me with tremendous joy to know the work I do matters…and that it’s making a difference.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Serving as a leader is a tremendous honor but also one that comes with heavy responsibility. We are called to set the vision for our companies, inspire and motivate staff, ensure financial sustainability, communicate effectively, and serve as the key representative within the community. In essence, be all things to all people! In order to inspire those around us, leaders must convey confidence in themselves and their teams, positively communicate (even in the challenging times!) and above all, genuinely care about their staff and their lives beyond the workplace. At the end of the day, each of us wants to feel valued and appreciated, not just be viewed as a means to an end. For me, I strive to be confident in who I am and my purpose while showing humility and kindness to those around me. I find that confidence breeds huge amounts of respect and motivates others to join you, whether that’s in leading your team, making decisions, or building relationships with clients, shareholders or donors. Here’s my top 4 must do’s for every leader:
1. Ensure YOU are in a good place first. You can’t effectively take care of your team or lead your business/organization if you are struggling, personally or professionally. For me, I make sure I build into my schedule time to work out – usually a run or a lifting session at the gym. I also am diligent to take time off when I need it, and when I am off, modeling for my staff that time off is important and ensuring I set boundaries with that time off – not checking email or working from home. I am also an advocate for therapy and see my own therapist every other week.
2. Be clear about where you want your organization/business to go. It is your responsibility to set the vision and create as much certainty as possible for your team. Each year, I host an offsite strategic planning session with my executive team where we talk openly about what goals we have for the agency in the coming year. We dig deep into how we can improve while also celebrating the successes to date. Once the plan is complete, I schedule quarterly strategic plan review meetings to ensure our plan doesn’t gather dust on the shelf! We make modifications to the plan, as needed, during those meetings.
3. Be the calm in the storm…manage challenges without losing it or creating more chaos for your team. Uncertainty from a leader breeds more uncertainty with our staff! And while we may not always have the answers all the time, the way we react always sets the tone for our culture and the way our organization or business will react to customers or clients.
4. Spend time with your team and support them. Say hi to them first thing in the morning! Know about their families. Ask about their children. I’ll never forget the experience I had years ago, reporting directly to the CEO of a nonprofit. We traveled regularly and spent a lot of time together due to my role. Not one time did he ever ask about my husband or my children. In fact, I don’t think he even knew how many children I had. It was discouraging and disappointing and I lost a lot of respect for him over the years. His behavior demonstrated that I was simply someone there to benefit him…that my life outside of work didn’t matter. I vowed to never treat one of my own staff in the same way.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

When I came to Calm Waters, our reputation was already known and respected, but it needed to be significantly elevated to (1) ensure more individuals within the community were aware of our services to be served and (2) to provide more opportunities for individuals, corporations and funders to support the work. Because of my strong background in public relations and communications and significant relationships with the media and community, this was a fun challenge for me! I leveraged every opportunity to pitch the local media for feature stories, on-camera interviews and developed public service announcements on the local NBC affiliate station. Similarly, I secured a monthly segment on the CBS local affiliate to talk about mental health as it relates to grief and loss in our community, leveraging Calm Waters as the grief experts in central Oklahoma. I also rebranded the organization, developing a new logo (first update in 15 years!) and ensured consistency of messaging and branding in all our communications. I moved our offices to a more high profile location in downtown Oklahoma City to have a greater presence within the corporate community while also being more accessible for our clients and families. Above all though, my team and I are genuine with the relationships we develop – with clients, volunteers, donors and members of the community. It’s because of those positive interactions that our reputation has grown substantially and the proof is in the numbers. We have the highest operating budget in the organization’s history and are serving more clients and families than ever before.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.calmwaters.org
• Instagram: @calmwatersok and @erinengelke
• Facebook: @calmwatersok
• Linkedin: @calmwaterscenterforchildrenandfamilies