Our Story Continues   •   December 5th, 2018

By Heather P.

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have always loved animals.  I was always out looking for wildlife when I was younger.  Perhaps I missed my calling as a veterinarian.  Growing up, I had hamsters, guinea pigs, and dogs (my parents finally drew the line when I expressed interest in an African Grey parrot).  As I got older, I wanted to continue adopting and rescuing pets, but wanted a pet with a longer life expectancy and that was fairly self-sufficient.  As such, in 2005, I adopted my first pet cat from an animal shelter in Indiana.  In 2011, his “brother” was adopted.  Since 2 pet cats was my personal limit, I continued to give back by volunteering at the local animal shelter.  I wanted to help these animals in any way that I could and hoped to help them ultimately find their forever homes.

Fast forward to now…

It was just a short time ago that I was packing my life into a U-Haul to make the trek across the Great Plains from Illinois to the beautiful state of Colorado.  I’ve dreamt of living near the mountains for as long as I can remember.  I was just waiting for the right career opportunity to arise in order to make the move.  The time had come!

I had met, worked, and interviewed with various staff members at Centennial Lending, and knew I would enjoy a career opportunity with the company for many reasons.  Once the job offer came through, it was a no brainer that the time had come for me to pursue my professional and personal dreams.

The drive was uneventful, thank goodness.  You see, it’s not every day that I get the opportunity to drive a 15-foot truck complete with an auto transport in tow.  To make the drive even more interesting, I had a friend riding along with me and had my 2 pet cats neatly stacked in carriers between us.  It made for a cozy drive.  One of my pets does not enjoy riding in his carrier, so my friend would break him out from time to time and allow him to take in the scenery as we slowly made our way cross country (pictured here in this blog).

After 2 long days of driving, we finally reached our destination in Colorado.  It felt great to finally be here.  We got everyone and everything settled into the new place.  Over the next 6 days, I worked to unpack and make the place my own.  The pets were adjusting nicely.  Everything was coming together.

6 days later, I started my new job.

I was excited for this new endeavor.  My professional passions include people, process, and projects.  I was now entering a role where I would be overseeing our Human Resource and Project Management functions.  Perfect!  Under the Human Resource umbrella, I hope to continue partnering with fellow team members to strengthen employee engagement, plan and launch a Health and Wellness campaign, compose a Leadership Development program, and generally continue support of our staff members so they may be as successful as possible during their tenure here at Centennial Lending.  As mentioned above, I enjoy helping others and giving back.  I love that I am empowered to help others simply by performing my job.

Centennial Lending doesn’t let helping others and giving back stop internally with our staff.  Furthermore, the organization firmly believes in doing more than just helping the local community via business offerings.  Centennial Lending team members also volunteer, donate, give back, and collaborate with the local community as much as possible.

All regular, full time team members receive 8 hours of paid volunteer time off per year.  Team members receive the option to make a one time or ongoing charitable campaign donation to a few local non-profit organizations (including, but not limited to a local animal shelter).  In the short amount of time that I have been here, I have seen team members continuously pulling together group donation efforts to help those in need in our local community.  Wow.  I have never met a group of more passionate people.  It is refreshing and beautiful!

So, why tell you my history about loving pets followed by some narrative about my time here at Centennial Lending?  The reason is that it is wonderful to be a part of a team and to build a career within an organization that places the same value that I have not only on professional, but also personal beliefs.  It makes for a more passionate, collaborative, dedicated team, and I am proud to be a part of that team!