Lisa Larkin, PCDCC Diversity Committee Chair
~ Multi-Faceted, Multi-Talented. More Than a Triple Threat ~
Most of us working with Placer County Democrat clubs have at some point called Lisa Larkin, begging for help with a computer issue. She always answers the call and provides the answer, yet she never took more than a very basic computer course and became a self-taught “computer expert”. Her current job title is “Application Architect & Technology Trainer” for the Best Friends Animal Society, an organization working to save the lives of cats, dogs, and other animals all-across America, giving pets second chances and happy homes. This work shows her drive to help others and has been seen in her various volunteer efforts: the Paradise fire support, volunteering at food banks, and teaching herself to use a sewing machine to make over 1,000 masks this last year as the pandemic educated us all about the risks of interacting with each other.
So, what does she do for relaxation? She skydives!! In 2009 Lisa again showed her interest in helping others as she and 181 friends set a world record for the largest, all women formation skydive, raising almost $1 million for the City of Hope and cancer research. The dive was featured as the Sport’s Illustrated Photo of the Year.
Lisa spent her early years in Southern California, living close enough to the beach to be part of the “SoCal” lifestyle, hopping on a bus after school with her surf board to surf at Huntington Beach. Beyond surfing, she filled her schedule with karate and the school band where she played “any instrument they needed”. Referring to herself as a “band geek,” she played trumpet until orthodontic braces became problematic, then moved to drums, oboe, clarinet, and saxophone – again, all self-taught!
After marrying, her then husband was serving in the military and they were stationed in Germany where she worked in the PX selling Commodore computers. She increased her computer knowledge further when she landed an Administrative Assistant position working in MOPS – mobilizations, operations, plans and security. The main goal of MOPS was the safe evacuation of military families in the event of an emergency or threat.
After returning to the U.S. she moved to North Carolina, finding her next job in accounts receivable which increased both her business and computer skills. Multiple promotions quickly followed and lead to additional business expertise. This made her the perfect person to talk to programmers about how software should work to make users more efficient and effective when using technology.
During her time in North Carolina, this straight “A” student also achieved her liberal arts degree from Catawba Valley College. On her return to California, Lisa continued to put those self-taught computer skills to work becoming a company’s Director of Data Management leading a team of over 20 employees. When that company closed up shop, her former colleague and HR director of the company connected her to ‘Sound Strategies’, a business exploring the use of telephony software featuring “voice talent.” Lisa was recruited to join the endeavor and became a ‘jack of all trades’, doing, as she says, “literally everything’. Like those musical skills, she was never thrown off by needing to enhance her computer skills – she just did it and became the “expert” we all seek out when our computer becomes smarter than we are.
But it was a skydiving friend and his fiancé who changed her life and her career when they approached her about starting a ‘no kill’ animal sanctuary. They shared a Best Friends “How to start a sanctuary” seminar with her and asked Lisa to join them. That sanctuary never came to fruition, but her introduction to Best Friends had already been made so she sought a position at Best Friends Animal Society. Her life, and love of animals, took her in a totally new direction. She accepted a foot in the door role in the Technology Division as an Office Manager, and her skills were quickly recognized and, literally, a never before position in the company was created for Technology Trainer/Application Architect. She now conducts about 50 different classes per month, teaching over 800 employees how to work with technology internally, and with other organizations across the country, as well as is being responsible for other business software application implementations, administration, project research, support, etc.
The pandemic shifted how Best Friends did business and brought additional needs to staff and volunteers whose job roles underwent drastic changes or who needed to connect remotely so they could continue to help save animal lives. Lisa had to shift gears quickly to find new software applications, learn them, and then produce video tutorials, documentation, and teach live classes on the new tools in a very short amount of time.
Equality, fairness, fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves drive Lisa and keep her life jam packed. Her most recent project for Placer County Dems was sparked by the circumstances surrounding the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The same compassion and desire to help others has led her to learn, study and reach out to others to make “culture commitments”.
While Lisa has served the PCDCC in a number of supportive ways, she has recently led a team of our PCDCC members to learn, educate and modify our ways of interacting with people from all cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Treating every person and animal with fairness, equality and compassion is what makes Lisa Larkin a very special and unique member of our community.
