Laurie Thom, who has been with us for nearly five years, is a mentor on one of our dedicated accounts. She says her role is to be “a resource for those individuals who I’m privileged to be a mentor to,” helping her coworkers find information they need and handle diverse call situations consistently. From her home in Terrebonne, Oregon, about twenty-five miles north of Bend, Laurie avails herself of our flexible scheduling system to have more time with her husband, who works 48 hours on and 96 hours off as a firefighter on the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs reservation.
When she isn’t working, Laurie volunteers at a nearby community school, teaching critical thinking to 6th through 8th graders. “I really believe critical thinking is absolutely necessary for our society to continue,” she says, “and it’s something that gets left on the sidelines a lot.” Drawing on her experience helping with her own kids’ high school debate teams, she shows her students that debate is more than just fighting with words. “You need to be able to look at an issue from both sides,” she says, “recognize your own biases and suspend them to be able to listen.”
