From Cuba to Connecticut
Immigrant’s journey leads to diverse career path — from police officer to realtor By Odalys Bekanich Special to Today Magazine
I WAS BORN in Havana, Cuba in 1962 under a recently installed Communist regime that promised to end life as we had known and enjoyed under a free government. Within a couple of years, as our basic needs grew more scarce and more difficult to obtain, an unrest among the people caused the president to say that whoever wasn’t happy could leave. My courageous mother wasted no time and was the 98,702nd person out of 1 million people who turned up at the Swiss embassy the very next day to apply to leave the country. But the Cuban government took revenge and cruelly punished us for three years by further diminishing what little sustenance was provided. My family had to wash clothes by hand and do other daily menial jobs to survive until we were able to leave the calamity that consumed us. My father, being of military age at 25 years old, was forced to stay behind to serve as mandated. My father unselfishly allowed us to leave knowing that a better life awaited us. In 1968, my mother, my grandmother, my sister and I entered the USA with just the clothes on our backs. I was taught from a very young age about the sacrifices that were made for us. I was taught also to love America for the freedoms and opportunities we are fortified with, and everything I do is with a zealous heart and the value of our Constitution in mind. My mother went to school by day, learning English, and worked at night until she graduated and became a social worker for the New Britain Welfare Department, where she worked for almost 30 years. My father was never able to leave Cuba, and both my mother and father remarried. In 1984, after successfully passing exams and tests and graduating from the Hartford Police Academy, I became a police officer with the New Britain Police Department. I started out by walking a beat, and then did undercover work for a few years, for New Britain and other towns in a trade-off program arranged by the police departments involved. Eventually I was honored with a special assignment with 8
BUSINESS BEAT HONORING FIRST RESPONDERS
Odalys Bekanich became a police officer in 1984 ______________________ ODALYS BEKANICH Real Estate Broker Associate HBO Property Group — Coldwell Banker Email bekanich@sbcglobal.net Phone 860-676-1200 Website OdalysBekanich.cbintouch.com Realty Offices 290 West Main Street Avon, CT 855 Farmington Avenue, Farmington Serving the Farmington Valley and surrounding towns Licensed as Realtor — 1989 Became Broker — 1999 Owned and operated International Realty Plus HBO LLC from 2000-2014 in Avon and Farmington ___________________________________________
AUGUST 2021 – www.TodayPublishing.net – TODAY MAGAZINE
the New Britain Police Department’s Community Relations Division, where I was involved in all types of community crime awareness and safety programs such as the Neighborhood Block Watch organizing groups, informative programs for seniors, programs designed for the city’s mayor and dignitaries, and my greatest accomplishment — the introduction and implementation of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, or D.A.R.E. For many years, I led and ran the D.A.R.E. program, primarily for 5th-grade students in New Britain, forming strong mentoring relationships with many to this day. I always tell people that my husband Joseph “Joe” Bekanich and I met in jail 34-plus years ago — because we truly did. I was acting as a police matron for a female I had arrested and had to watch all night, since no surveillance cameras were allowed in the female cells. I had to essentially babysit the women prisoners I had arrested until the following day, or until Monday if the arrest was on a Friday, when this particular arrest occurred. Then they would go to court to be arraigned, unless they were bailed out or released by the bail commissioner. Joe was the bail commissioner, and he showed up and freed the prisoner. I was livid and gave him a piece of my mind — and from then on we lived happily ever after. While I was still a police officer, I took an interest in real estate and began assisting my future husband, as he was already a licensed real estate agent. I obtained my real estate license and enjoyed helping people achieve their home and property objectives. Later, Joe became a real estate broker, and I decided I wanted to do this full-time and also became a broker. My husband, myself and our good friend Joseph H. Harper Jr. (the longtime state senator for New Britain) opened our own real estate brokerage in 2000 in Avon, in Plaza 44 on East Main Street — International Realty Plus HBO LLC. Then we moved to Old Avon Village and opened another office in Unionville on Route 177. Through hard work and caring for our clients’ needs, we were successful and grew the company to 27 agents. Later the economy challenged the