Finance Team Mentoring Article

When it comes to mentoring, there are dozens of ICAN staff who are in homes, schools and communities working directly with youth, teens and adults as part of their job with us. During a call for success stories for National Mentoring Month, we discovered that the members of our Finance Team (who you can find handling every “numbers-related task and strategy” that ICAN needs!), ALSO have great mentoring stories to share.

So this is a two-for-one for you!

You get to meet the members of our top notch, in-house Finance Team AND hear about how mentoring has fulfilled their lives outside of work and how those experiences show up as they work together in their department.

Kayla Leisner

Director of Business and Finance
Oversees the department and works to support organization health, stability and growth

“Coaching cheer has been my favorite ‘job’ – if you even can call it a job!” From age 18 through her late twenties, Kayla coached Proctor High School cheerleading with her sister. It was a fun, exciting and eye opening experience for her that has shaped her life greatly. Many of her athletes were balancing working jobs, going to school, supporting their families and working through things at home that were taking up their mental space. Some were parents. Some were English-speaking interpreters for their families. Cheerleading was a safe space for them and also something they could do for themselves, where they could grow and be kids. The mentoring piece of a coaching role is complicated with older kids because of all the hats they wear and challenges they face. Without being too intrusive, you can be there in more subtle ways – sometimes as simple as giving them a ride or listening to them. Kayla shared that “One of the most rewarding comments ever was a student who shared that they graduated because of cheer.”

She sees former cheerleaders everywhere – some she coached now work with us at ICAN, she’ll see some on Facebook and is overjoyed when they share memories and say “these were the good days!” or “This was the favorite part of my life!”

Kayla will ALWAYS have “Coach Kayla” in her. “It’s part of who I am… it’s the type of leader I am. If someone is going through something, I’m here to tell them to ‘close the door, here’s the tissues, let’s walk through it.’ I was fortunate to learn early on in my life through coaching that where you come from is different than where others come from. Empathy, listening, understanding and support are the most important things you can offer.”

Seth Etman

Finance Manager
Oversees the team, reviews outgoing vouchers, incoming budgets and reporting.
Works closely with program managers throughout ICAN to help with their needs.

When you meet Seth, you can tell right away he cares for others. When you find out he’s a Cub Master for kids ages 5-12, you’re like “Yup! I totally see that for him!” Through his work as the head leader for Pack 79 Cub Scouts in Marcy, he has dedicated just over three years assisting with administrative work and serving as their treasurer. “It’s a lot of planning and being ready for whatever comes my way!” he shares with a smile. He loves seeing the progress of projects and how being part of scouting teaches kids new skills. 

He also works directly with the scouts themselves and that’s where Seth’s mentoring role comes in. His two sons are in the Pack so it is nice having parenting, mentoring and scouting all overlap during the experience, but he also enjoys instilling in ALL of the youth to have pride in their work and in their community. “I push them to do community service, even small projects, and to do it well and from the heart. Being invested in what you are doing shines through and makes people gravitate to you. It’s so important!” Seth also loves to work with some of the older boys and helping them start mentoring the young ones – to work with them, show them the ropes and model how to interact with each other.

Here at ICAN, Seth is a great liaison between his department and others and you can see his love for connection and care. He enjoys interacting with everyone at ICAN and strives to be very supportive and patient. “I want people to know they can come to our team or me for whatever is needed and we want to help make sure everyone is being the best they can be here.”

Jean Reale

Accounts Payable & Purchasing Specialist
Processes and prepares vendor bills and invoices, handles bank reconciliations and provider payments

It’s heartwarming that Jean, lovingly called the “Momma Bear of Finance” by her team, names her own mother as the best mentor she has had. It reminds us that sometimes the most impactful mentors can be the ones who have been with you all your life!

Jean’s mom Anna is always supportive, always thinking of Jean and doing things for her when she doesn’t take time to think of herself. Going through a tough time battling cancer, Anna continues to show strength and care for others and her resilience is admirable. Jean is extremely close with her mom and “I wouldn’t be the mom I am today to my two boys if I didn’t have her around.” Her characteristics of being brave, loving and caring, along with her strong advice to always “be yourself!” drive Jean to pass those lessons and love along to everyone around her. Parenting her 10 and 12 year olds now, her steadfast advice is to try to instill in your kids the values of faith, family and love… and of course to “BE YOURSELF! You’re who you are and don’t listen to anyone else!” 

Jean makes the finance department feel “cozy”. When she shared that her mom always listens and has a heart of gold, her team paused, looked at each other and then looked at her to exclaim, “That sounds a lot like YOU, Jean!”

Taylor Stockbridge 

Billing Clerk
Grant and contract vouchering

Taylor is a natural born cheerleader in all aspects of her life, so it’s no surprise that she entered her seventh season coaching Pop Warner cheer this year. She has coached ages 3-15 and pays forward to them what her own cheer coaches from her younger years provided to her – someone she knew she could go to and who made her feel loved and cared about. Before practice, after practice, over social media or at other times throughout the day or night, she is “that coach”, there for them and listening to whatever they need to share or work through.

With a laugh she shares that she lets her young athletes know “I’m here to support you and love you, but also to let you know you need to knock it off!!” 

The trust and safety you can offer young athletes in a coaching role is a big responsibility and honor. Helping the “big girls” learn the importance of being role models for the younger girls gets a new generation of mentors and leaders ready as well.

It fills her heart when she’s out and about and sees girls she coached when they were five or six years old, and are now teenagers and remember her and how she made them feel.

Cheerleading is a GREAT foundation to build skills that last a lifetime and bring positivity and energy into the workplace, and Taylor does just that! She is always happy and upbeat and you just might catch her whipping up buffalo chicken wing dip in a crockpot in the finance department space! Cheerleading teaches you that you can work as a team and that everyone plays an important role in your success.

Taylor’s final words of advice: “Be there for your kids. Be there for your team! AND… things may get wild, but WOW it will be fun!”

Erica Randall

Billing Clerk
Insurance billing, eligibility and verification, claim corrections and systems configuration

Erica loves volleyball – played it when she was younger, coached for a bit and still plays it as an adult every Sunday on a league. As with many long term relationships with a sport you love, so many things in her life stem from experiences revolving around it. Coaching for a couple years in Dolgeville, she learned that by coaching and mentoring young people, sometimes you see and hear things that can affect your life dramatically. 

Coaching and the subsequent mentoring that comes with it frames not only how you play, but how you are wired to carry yourself through the world in all of your roles. Erica had a great, award-winning, tough coach in high school. “With that woman behind you… you GO! When I am on the court STILL, I hear her in my ear and you MOVE!” she explained. Coaches tend to leave constant chatter in your head and when you have a GOOD coach, that’s a good thing. When it’s negative, that could do some damage. When the Finance Team got together as a group for this article, they talked about the huge responsibility this role is with young people and how you will be someone’s memory for decades. The things you say and how you make youth feel is of utmost importance to keep in mind. Erica reflected on that. “It’s amazing how certain things you remember are ingrained in your brain from coaches 30 years ago!”

Sports is also something that serves as a great connector with others. Erica also works at a diner outside of her hometown and a fellow server was a volleyball coach. There are coworkers at ICAN who played when they were younger and even now, and it keeps a passion ignited, connections continuing and friendships growing.

Erica’s two sons play a bit with her as well. Her parenting advice to them is to make sure you’re making a comfortable space for yourself to BE, and smile… EVEN when you don’t want to!

Matt Kopytowski

Accounts Payable & Purchasing Specialist
Handle purchasing for the agency and assist with accounts payable 

Matt is the newest member of the growing Finance Team, taking the role of one half of Purchasing and Accounts Payable. His experiences with mentoring have been helping out fellow teammates on his high school baseball team and seeing the work that ICAN teammates around him are doing. This leads him to thinking he may explore more mentoring opportunities in the future. (ICAN is a great place to do that!)

He does fondly remember being mentored, but not by one person in particular, as is the case in many of our lives when we reflect on those who have influenced us. It was a culmination of parents, teachers, coaches and other adults who provided guidance and inspiration. One team that he particularly recalls shaping so much of his early professional life was the operations team at his first job at JC Penney. He was 19 years old, a sophomore in college and joined a stellar team of older coworkers who modeled how it was to be professional while also having fun. A shy kid, he was able to start coming out of his shell there.

Working retail is challenging and multi-faceted, with everything in the mix from inventory to customer service. They showed him the ropes. He learned good customer relations, which included how to work with all different kinds of people, in different moods, at different times of the day. He learned how to keep his cool and turn issues into positive experiences. He also absorbed the importance of being neat and organized - something he was already naturally good at, but in retail it’s another level. 

Matt works methodically and has to take his time with things and make sure they’re done correctly. That is a great approach to your work and a team can rely heavily on a person with that skill set, but an old boss helped move things along by dropping a little “quick quick like bunny!” phrase here and there – something that he still recalls as he’s working and that reminds him to keep tasks and projects moving!