A career built on caring for others
Sandy Lia has been with Ecumen-Detroit Lakes for 36 years — STORY BY VICKI GERDES — Though she is actually a North Dakota native, Sandy Lia did spend some time in Detroit Lakes as a child. “I went to Washington School for a year, and then Callaway School for a year,” she said. “Then we moved to Casselton until my freshman year, when we went to Hawley. I graduated from there.”
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WOMEN IN BUSINESS 2014
But she never really expected to end up back in Detroit Lakes as an adult, much less make the community her home for 36 years and counting. It was a rather circuitous route that led her back to the lakes area: After Lia went to Brainerd Community College, majoring in drama, she headed out to parts
west. “I had a wild hair that I was going to work on a ranch in Tucson, but I ended up moving to Salt Lake City,” she said. “My older brother was living there, and he wanted me to come live with him for a while. So I worked at the University of Utah’s theater department, where I met