Often we tend to point a finger at others and hope that it would make things better. Lori Graber, Director of Rehabilitation, is also an Occupational Therapist who looks at things the other way around.
Contrary to the easy way out, she tried and emerged as the change she wanted to see in the world.
Growing up on a farm in Iowa, Graber cherished having fun with the animals and wide open spaces. She then fell in love with the ocean when she moved to Corpus Christi Texas in 3rd grade. This shift also made her fall in love with a different way of life. So much so that young Lori made up her mind to pursue Occupational Therapy as a career when she was just in the 6th grade.
However, Garber did face her own set of challenges. She says, “When I was in my freshman year of college, I thought I wanted to change career paths because my OT classes came so easily to me.” “This led me to change colleges and focus on Pre Med/Psychology. While finishing this degree I realized that OT came easily to me because I loved it so much and that was my calling.“
With that realization, she was now able to fulfill her passion to help others succeed in life regardless of the obstacles they may encounter.
Garber now works in an amazing Nursing & Rehabilitation Facility, Cascadia, and manages Physical, Occupational and Speech Therapists. She is also a leader in the management team at her center. Her main career focus has been in Geriatrics and she has a gamut of experience with interacting with families, staff, residents, insurance companies and other vendors to make her clients as functional and successful as possible in their daily life.
Her organization, Cascadia, focuses on quality patient treatment, outcome and good employee relations. Their mission is to focus on the importance of family, teamwork and compassion for others. They care for a wide variety of patients including ventilator patients and patients in all stages of the lifespan. It is this care that has kept many to even function safely.
In her career, Graber had many opportunities for growth and challenge. As she gets closer to the end of her career today, she wants to find ways to share the accumulation of her knowledge with others and mentor them towards success. Graber highly resonates with the thought that sometimes it is challenging for outsiders to see how skills in one area carry over to other career domains.
If she had to justify her favorite quote in terms of her life, it would certainly be exemplary. Her life, as she describes, has been a wonderful adventure of learning and mentorship to others along the way. She takes pleasure in causing ripples in the lives of people in order to help them emerge as successful and more independent.
Graber’s success is well evident in the areas of strong retention of staff during her career. It was effective due to her strong management style as well as consistently meeting and exceeding budget and productivity expectations. She was chosen as one of the 200 people in a company of 46,000 for a Hope Summit for excellence in caregiving as well as HLTH recipient of scholarship to conference for two years in a row. Lori Graber has been a past Girl Scout Leader for 8 years and is also active in community organizations. She’s fabulous with building professional relationships with insurance companies as well as families and clients for successful outcomes. Her career had led her to many different facets of management and patient care.
When Lori was requested to share a message for the readers, she said this – “Everyone has something to share with others and your life can change/inspire others in ways big and small.” She has evidently applied this to her life and has changed several lives for the good. No wonder why she loves the quote, “Be the light you want to see in the world.“