Employee Spotlight: Breena Ferguson, Managing Associate

Meet Breena Ferguson, Managing Associate, who recently led her team through a successful groundbreaking of improvements to the Salvation Army’s 113-acre Western Plains Camp that will support new programs and a larger volume of guests and campers. In addition to successfully managing challenging projects in Chicago, Sioux Falls, and Phoenix, she is active with staff improvement and development. Breena has helped us develop our COVID protocols, organized town halls to foster communication and learning, DEI training, and initiated an internal project management training and development program. Breena is very focused on cultivating our unique culture and making FitzGerald a better place for all. She is currently creating a Welcome Guide for new hires to discover FitzGerald’s culture and development teams.

Breena’s warm, humorous, and caring attitude makes her peers feel like family. She credits her mom with instilling that caring approach, which she passes to those she mentors by encouraging everyone to always ask questions and be considerate of others. She is passionate about her own family–her two children and her husband–and they like to stay active and go on “big adventures” every weekend which includes exploring a new park, playground, or forest hike in Chicago and beyond no matter the weather. 

Breena is an All-Star at FitzGerald, so it’s no wonder that she’s got her very own All-Star basketball card—check it out in the photos! What daring feat will this All-Star never do again? Find out this answer and more in the questions we asked her below. We also invite you to get to know her further through her staff bio.

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We took some time to get to know Breena, and here’s what we learned:

Who has influenced you most when it comes to how you approach your work?
“My mom. She taught me to always ask questions and to be considerate of others.”

What was your first job?
“Besides pulling weeds for Mrs. Farmer when I was 14, I worked at LaRosa’s in Mason, Ohio.”

Which season is your favorite?
“Summer forever and always.”

What do you do to turn things around when you’re having a bad day?
“Talk it out with my husband.”

What’s something you’ve done but will never do again?
“The Royal Rush Skycoaster; a 50mh free fall and seeing 1200 feet over the Royal Gorge. It wasn’t fun.”

If you would only have three apps on your smartphone, which would you pick?
“Spotify, Messages, Libby.”

What’s your favorite way to unwind after a busy day?
“Laughing.”

What’s your go-to productivity trick?
“Get myself set up with a tall cup of ice water and a thorough to-do list.”

What do you do to keep fit?
“You’re making a lot of assumptions there.”

What’s the funniest place you’ve ever fallen asleep?
“No, I don’t do that. I can’t fall asleep just any-old-where.”