Her belief in service leads Lisa Lindgren to Soroptimist International

Lisa Lindgren is the new president for Soroptimist International of La Jolla (www.silj.org). The organization’s mission is to improve the lives of woman and girls, locally and globally. The La Jolla branch has served the community since 1947.

Lindgren said her family moved frequently while she was a child, and attributes this to her interest in meeting new people and trying new things. She holds a B.S. in Applied Economics from Cornell University and a MBA in Marketing from San Diego State University. Her professional career includes 10 years with IBM and six with SAIC.

In 1997, Lindgren hung out her own shingle and is now a marketing consultant, specializing in helping companies deploy their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in the community.

Lindgren is married and counts as part of her family, a dog, a cat, and three horses.

What brought you to La Jolla?

Fate. In late December 1989, my husband and I were returning to Florida after spending Christmas in the Bay Area. A combination of heavy fog, and then a mechanical problem, forced our plane to land here and we stayed overnight.

We spent a wonderful day in La Jolla and after returning home, decided we really wanted to move here. It was, after all, the dawning of a new decade. It was the best decision we ever made.

What makes this area special to you?

This area is so accessible and offers so much from our vibrant downtown to our beautiful coast and expansive countryside. Here there are so many ways to touch the community and really make a difference. One of my goals when moving here was to be more involved and I couldn’t be happier with being a Soroptimist member and helping to improve the lives of women in need.

If you could snap your fingers and have it done, what might you add, subtract or improve in the area?

I wish we could solve our water problem. It’s not going away, and is just getting worse.

Who or what inspires you?

I am inspired by all the amazing people I regularly meet through Soroptimist who are working every single day to improve the lives of others — locally and globally.

If you hosted a dinner party for eight, whom (living or deceased) would you invite?

This was the hardest of the questions! I would have my late Grandma Lindgren and allow her to invite her favorite baseball player, because she loved baseball. That leaves me six more: Violet Richardson Ward, who founded Soroptimist in 1921, Cleopatra, Confucius, Marco Polo, Eleanor Roosevelt and Estee Lauder. I guess I would be the only living person at the table!

Tell us about what you are currently reading.

I’m reading “Medium Raw

” by Anthony Bourdain

, “Hollywood Crows”

by Joseph Wambaugh, and the current issue of

The Economist

.

What is your most-prized possession?

That would be a toss-up between my wedding ring, which I got to design on our 15

th

anniversary, and my Hermes saddle, which I got only slightly used and at a great deal.

What do you do for fun?

I have a nine-year-old Appaloosa gelding that I train and ride in horse shows. I usually ride him four times a week, and I just love driving out to the countryside and not really thinking about anything except the moment at hand and how we are performing that day.

Please describe your greatest accomplishment.

I really hope my greatest accomplishment is yet to come. But I have some extraordinary friends who are incredibly accomplished by any standard and I’m honored and humbled that they call me their friend, and count me as one of their own.

What is your motto or philosophy of life?

We can all do well for ourselves by doing good deeds in our community. I think this is true for individuals and for companies, too.