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Yolanda Lowe: High on Housing

When she was a child in Siracusa, Sicily, Yolanda Tine Lowe was taught to pray for children in other parts of the world. She remembers praying for children in the United States. “I never thought then that one day I would be an American,” she says.

Yolanda is now not only an American, but she is also one of the board members of both the Essex Housing Authority and Essex Elderly and Affordable Housing (EEAH). The affordable housing group, in partnership with the Women’s Institute for Housing and Economic Development, was responsible for overseeing the planning, financing, and construction of Essex Place, the affordable senior apartment complex that had its official opening last week. Essex Place includes 18 one-bedroom apartments and four two-bedroom apartments, as well as areas for general resident use, including a ground floor common room and a library on the second floor.(See story page 7)

The furnishing of the common areas was Yolanda’s particular responsibility because of her professional career as an interior designer for Aetna. She was also a construction project manager for the company, working in Hartford and in Middletown, when Aetna had a building there. The Essex Place task required not only her design sense; it also demanded respect for the project’s finances. “It was a challenge because we had a tight budget,” she says.

Yolanda, nonetheless, was up for that challenge with a solution born of her years of corporate work. “All corporations change furniture and there are resale places, huge warehouses full of furniture,” she explains. Yolanda, along with Janice Atkeson, who is chair of the Essex Housing Authority and president of EEAH, went to a number of the warehouses looking for furniture for Essex Place. Yolanda credits a grant from the Essex Foundation for making the purchase of the furniture possible. “They were a great help,” she says. “That’s what I love about this community.”

Yolanda’s father came to the United States alone after World War II and the rest of the family followed. Yolanda herself was 14 when she arrived in this country. She attended school for two years, but by sixteen, she was already working at Aetna as a keypunch operator in the days when coded cards were used for data entry. Aetna, for her, was not only a job; it was an education. “Working for Aetna was the equivalent of Harvard for me,” she says. She also attended interior design school, keeping a full schedule of classes while working full time.

Yolanda credits mentors who helped her move up the corporate ladder. In her days as a construction project manager, which included the standard yellow hard hat as part of her wardrobe, she was one of only three women to hold that position. When she began the job, in a male-dominated profession, she says there was an extra burden as a woman to prove herself, but over time, she felt the pressure lessen. “That was just in the early days,” she says.

Sometimes, her involvement with Aetna took her in unexpected directions. She met her late husband on an Aetna-sponsored bus trip to New York to see the hit play Jesus Christ Superstar. Through Aetna’s International Department, she worked as a translator for the Italian team in a world figure skating championship held in Hartford in 1981.

Aetna outsourced its construction and design divisions in the l990s, and Yolanda moved on to work for one of the companies she had done business with. But she wasn’t done with being a project manager. She acted as the project manager for the construction of her own house in Ivoryton. She and her husband lived in Simsbury for many years but in 2002, fulfilled their longtime goal of moving to the shoreline. “It was the best decision we ever made, moving to Essex,” she says.

Now Yolanda is a realtor with Berkshire Hathaway in Essex. She is also vice president of New Haven Middlesex Realtors. The key to being a good realtor, she says, is to do more listening to clients than speaking.

Some 12 years ago, she decided one of her goals should be getting and staying in good shape. “I am really a very goal-oriented person,” she explains. The result is she walks four miles every morning and annually participates the Terry Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation walk. Yolanda walks the entire marathon distance of 26 miles, 385 yards. It takes her about seven and a half hours.

Yolanda likes to garden in a water garden she designed at her home; she also cooks gourmet meals, sometimes Italian, sometimes just something with a touch of the exotic. And then, for recreation, there is Bella, a white maltipoo, a cross between a maltese and a poodle. Originally her nephew bought the dog for his family, but the intended recipient found she was allergic to the pet, so Yolanda and Bella are now a team.

Recently, Yolanda was at Essex Place when she saw a couple that had just had an interview as potential residents. “Just to see their excitement made my day,” she says. “The apartments are gorgeous, spacious, and bright. It is a blessing to be in a community that has this available.”