WOMEN
IN BUSINESS
Friday, March 24, 2017
Inspired by family, mentors, Lisa Long achieves career Jennifer Best CON TR IBU TING W R ITE R
‘With family support, you can do something at one stage in your life, and then do something equally great at another stage’
Len Wood, Staff
Lisa Long is the Deputy Controller for the Central Coast Water Authority. She is shown in her Buellton office. While raising her family and working for the City of Santa Maria, she earned her bachelor and master’s degrees. She is immediate past president of Rotary Club of Santa Maria.
Lisa Long spent most of her adult life raising children. Today, she is the deputy controller for the Central Coast Water Authority and two classes and one thesis away from earning her master’s degree. “With family support, you can do something at one stage in your life, and then do something equally great at another stage,” Long said. Long, who lives in Orcutt, didn’t start working toward her associate’s degree until her own children had reached school age. “At that point, I never thought I’d have a college education. It turns out that, with family support, applying yourself and a crazy amount of work, you can get a lot done,” she said. While serving family, she also began serving the community. She volunteered as a women’s Bible study leader at First Christian Church in Santa Maria. She got involved with a group of women who traveled annually to Pattaya, Thailand to volunteer at Tamar Center, which provides job-skills training for prostitutes leaving the streets. There, Long and other members of her Team America spoke about their life choices, jobs, careers of women they knew. She had part-time jobs here and there, she said, but nothing that could lead to a career or provided retirement benefits. By 2008, her own children largely self sufficient, Long returned to full-time work. At Comcast, her general manager, Christina Villanueva, encouraged Long to continue her education. “If it hadn’t been for the encouragement of a great, woman manager who helped me see my potential, I wouldn’t have gone on to get my bachelor’s degree, and because of that degree, PLEASE SEE LONG, Page A8