New executive director named by GVCCC

Over the New Year holidays, the Green Valley Community Coordinating Council got a new executive director—Sandi Richey.

Only Sandi is not really not that new. She has worked for GVCCC for seven years, helping the wheels turn effortlessly in this complex organization.

She succeeded Joyce Finkelstein, who had been director for 10 years before retiring recently.

One of Richey’s earlier jobs was for an marketing company, where she did computer mapping.

It provided useful background for one of her most important duties at GVCCC, editing the Green Valley Community Directory.

The new one is due out at the end of February. “We’re in the middle of the big push now,” Richey said in a short interview.

It’s an extremely useful publication, with addresses and phone numbers of Green Valley residents, a line about where they previously lived and previously jobs. It has a listing by address only, showing who’s the occupant of just about every address.

And the maps are flawless.

Someone once said Richey has driven on every street in Green Valley, but she begs to differ.

“Probably most of them,” she said

She and her husband, retired Marine Lt. Col. Rich Richey, had their parents living in Green Valley for a while.

Her mother lives here, but her father and her husband’s parents, have passed away.

She recalled her earliest job with GVCCC.

“One reason I ws so excited about joining the GVCCC staff is because when my father, Gene Schipmann, was alive, he served on the GVCCC board as corporate secretary in the 1990s.

“I knew he would be proud.”

The Richeys have a son in Chicago and a daughter in Florida and they have five grandchildren.

And no, she said, she doesn’t get to see them enough, maybe once a year. That’s a lament of many people who live in the vast United States.

For much of her early life, Richey was a high school teacher, a job she treasured because the interaction with the schoolchildren.

Working with Richey in the GVCCC office is Karen Corrao.

People call GVCCC with a variety of questions and problems. Corrao helped a local woman in her 90s get her air conditioner fixed in a dispute with a landlord, and Richey said the office also had to help get a couple of bee hives removed from other yards.

On Richey’s office walls and in desk frames are pictures of four dogs, two beloved former dogs and the two who now share their lives in Green Valley.

There’s also a picture of her horse, a real pal. she said.

jlamb@gvnews.com | 547-9749