Nancy O'Mara retires: CARDV Executive Director from November 2001-June 2010
28 June 2010 | 3:06 pm
The following speech was given by Lorena Reynolds, CARDV Board Member, at Nancy O’Mara’s retirement party held at Valley Catering on June 23, 2010. Nancy joined CARDV’s staff as Executive Director in November, 2001 and retired June 25, 2010. CARDV staff honored Nancy at the event by naming our second shelter, which she was instrumental in obtaining for CARDV in 2004, the “Nancy O’Mara House.”
Working with survivors of domestic and sexual violence is hard work. It is relentless. It can be stressful, exhausting, and emotional. It is sometimes dangerous and crazy-making. It can make you frustrated, scared, and angry. It is often sad. Many wonderful, committed, and highly competent people come to the work, stay for a few years, and then move on with their lives. Not many people make a career of it. Even fewer retire at the end of a long career with the kind of hopeful presence that Nancy has.
Nancy has been doing this work almost 30 years. When Nancy started doing this work, the world was fundamentally different for survivors. When she started answering a hotline in 1981, it was before the movie, The Accused; before Anita Hill; before Nicole Brown Simpson’s death; before Oprah even had a television show, let alone told the world she was a survivor of childhood sexual assault. It was before mandatory arrest; before the VOCA, VAWA, FAPA, and ODSVD (all acronyms she won’t need to know anymore); before restraining orders were widely available; and before we had words, let alone services, for battered woman’s syndrome, date rape, marital rape, and stalking. It was before Take Back the Night, before Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and before schools talked to our children about domestic and sexual violence. There were no Mother’s Day Runs for Safe Families, no Safe Family Breakfasts, and the concept of victim’s rights was non-existent.
Nancy has been the change she wanted to see in the world. Every day she went to work, she made this world better for the women and children she has helped shelter, comfort, and advocate for. Ultimately she has made it a better world for everyone. I venture to say that she has answered thousands of crisis calls, met with hundreds of survivors, and touched the lives of more colleagues than she could count.
During the last 30 years, the movement has fundamentally changed. It has changed because of people like Nancy who day in and day out have been able to hold on to a vision of a community where everyone is safe in their home.
Sometimes when you do this work, it can make you angry. Nancy can get angry, but in all the time I have known her, I have never once seen her lose her temper—not even in a small way. No matter how pressed for time we are, no matter how awful the situation is, she is always as calm as if we were planning a potluck dinner to get together with friends.
Despite looking at the ugliest part of our culture every day, Nancy is the least bitter person I know. While I have watched many people in her situation get cynical and angry as the years of crisis work take their toll, Nancy continues to be always full of hope, joy, and optimism. Nancy has the unique ability to be both outraged at injustice while in no way being enraged by it. She sees everything as a puzzle that can be rearranged to make a picture that she wants to see.
Sometimes when you do this work, it can be overwhelmingly sad. Nancy can be with that sadness. She can feel it and allow it to have its place without being consumed by it—and without allowing those around her to be consumed by it. She has perspective on what we can and cannot do with the resources we have and at a fundamental level she knows that doing the work is what is shaping a safer future. She can maintain that perspective even when the outcome in a particular case is tragic.
There is nothing funny about domestic and sexual violence. That’s just the nature of this work. And yet Nancy brings to her work a sense of humor and an infectious laugh. You can’t do this work for 30 years if you cannot maintain a sense of humor and somehow Nancy has managed to do that. When she tilts her head back and laughs at something you have said, it just warms your heart.
Not so long ago, CARDV was perceived by some as the “radical feminist fringe,” to use Nancy’s words. With Nancy as the face of feminism and the feminist movement in Corvallis, we have made tremendous progress. From the day she arrived, Nancy has seen virtually everyone she has encountered as someone who wants to help her end domestic and sexual violence. Everyone was a potential ally to help protect those who are impacted by violence in their lives. Nancy has built relationships with law enforcement, judges, doctors, nurses, teachers, administrators, bureaucrats, politicians, bankers, realtors, you-name-it! She joined Rotary, met with clergy, and enlisted people from all walks of life to help make her vision a reality. This community has embraced her.
Nancy is client focused, always keeping in mind how services can best be provided to those who seek our services. When the crisis line rings, she’ll pick it up. When the budget needs balancing, our ability to meet client needs is always the first order of business. When an extra driver is needed to transport a large family, even over long distances, Nancy drives. She’s done this when she had other things to do, when she was supposed to be on vacation, when she was sick, and when it was more than a bit inconvenient. She has never expected more of the people around her than she was willing to give herself. When “rules” need to be bent or broken to keep someone safe, she is the first to do so—albeit in the most thoughtful and carefully planned manner possible. Despite her endless commitment, Nancy rarely acknowledges the extent of her role. That does not mean we didn’t notice.
Nancy does, however, acknowledge her staff. Whether it is bookkeeping, advocacy, crisis response, public education, or property maintenance, Nancy has developed a highly competent, dedicated staff that she is tremendously proud of and that will carry this agency forward.
I know she will get up here later and tell everyone that she could not have done this alone. She will credit her staff, her community partners, and maybe even her board. But the thing about Nancy is that she brings that out in people. She makes us hopeful that despite the horrors of the world around us, we can be the change that we want. She has built an agency that is ready for the next 30 years of advocacy. The legacy she has left for me is the hope of what we can accomplish for survivors in the next 30 years. There is still much to do and I thank Nancy for positioning CARDV to do it.
After I say all these things about her, it makes her sound a little Pollyanna-ish and yet she is anything but that. While she will lean forward and listen to you with her fingertips together and say things like, “Isn’t that grand?” and “That is so generous,” beneath her soft-spoken exterior is a focus and determination that is strong. She is unflappable under pressure. As an expert witness, her honesty, knowledge, and sincerity make her one of the most compelling and credible witnesses I have seen. No attorney has made a dent on cross-examination.
Sometimes the work at CARDV is dangerous and I have seen Nancy face danger with unwavering determination. Fear does not deter her. She makes a safety plan, she implements it, and then carries on with what needs to be done. She says what needs to be said. She speaks truth to power, even when power does not want to hear it. She has run CARDV with efficiency and a keen eye on fiscal policy and management that would make any corporate executive proud. She does not shy away from the hard decisions. She never passes the blame to someone else.
I was on the hiring committee when we hired Nancy. When I did one of the reference checks for her, I called a woman who had worked for her in Alaska and had taken over as ED when she left that agency. When I asked the standard question of whether she would re-hire Nancy, she laughed at me. She said, not only would she re-hire her, but she would gladly step down to have the experience of working for her again. She told me that I would never regret working with Nancy and that it would probably be the best decision our board ever made.
When I worry about finding someone to lead CARDV into the future, I think about that phone call. It was that conversation that solidified in my mind that this was the person that I wanted us to have. It had been a long and difficult ED search. Our first search had not yielded a viable candidate. The committee was conflicted. CARDV was not the stable, growing, established agency we are now.
We never could have predicted that inside the sweet woman in front of us at that interview was a mighty, mighty soul that would lead us, mentor us, learn with us, cry with us, and focus us on the hope, not the horror, that is with us every day we do this work.
If you can, please stand with me and honor Nancy O’Mara’s service to CARDV, to our community, and to our world.
Of all the people that I have worked with, Nancy is really the only person that has never once let me down. She will be missed.
Read more on Nancy:
Nancy's retirement announcement-- click here.
Nancy receiving one of the Women of Achievement Awards--click here.
