Lori Pappas
Global Team for Local Initiatives, Ethiopian Aid Organization
Bainbridge Island, WA USA
"All I have to do is redefine success."
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Lori's work combines: Medicine, Non-Profit Organizations, and Helping People
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Day In The Life
Life & Career Milestones
My path in life has been direct
1.
Says when she was growing up, women were expected to be teachers, secretaries, or stay-at-home moms and housewives.
2.
She always preferred to do office work, so she worked in a series of companies doing computerizing.
3.
Eventually built up the knowledge and funding to start her own tech company; ended up selling it at the height of the tech market.
4.
After selling her company, she "tried to be retired"; practiced golf, worked for nonprofits, traveled extensively.
5.
On a trip to Niger, she saw a girl her granddaughter's age with flies on her eyes; learned that these flies cause unnecessary blindness.
6.
Realized she could no longer partake in the shallowness of listening to her peers complaining about their multi-million-dollar homes not selling.
7.
Started the Global Team for Local Initiatives, which works to increase the lifespans of indigenous African peoples; now spends half her year living in Ethiopia.
8.
Says she needed to experience the traditional "American Dream," in order to realize that she had a different definition of what that dream should be.
