Pines Village board of directors profile: Sharon Mortensen

Treasurer

Quick quiz: How is accounting like serving on the Pines Village Board of Directors?

For Sharon Mortensen, both came to her in roundabout ways and quickly became things she loves.

Sharon, a certified public accountant in Valparaiso, as well as Pines Village board treasurer, originally wanted to be an attorney.  But before ever getting to law school, she earned a degree in accounting at Valparaiso University and became hooked.

“I love what I do,” Sharon says. “I am one of the lucky people.”

It’s the good she can do for others through financial consulting that attracted Sharon to the profession.

“I really care about people. I’ll go out of my way to help them,” she says. 

Sharon finds that when her clients discuss their financial situations, it becomes very personal and they often start talking about many things.  A number of clients have ended up becoming her friends, she says. 

Among the early clients of the practice she has owned for 30 years were a handful of Pines Village residents.  So she came to know the community and its special brand of celebration of seniors.  And, she says, she has known Pines Village CEO Laurie Mullet “forever.”

Sharon also serves as executive director of PACT, Inc. – Prisoners and Community Together – an Indiana-based non-profit aimed at finding productive alternatives to incarceration of criminal offenders.  The agency provides programs in community service restitution, day reporting and victims’ assistance.  It also sponsors a federal half-way house in Michigan City and a domestic violence shelter in Southern Indiana.

PACT, Sharon says, seeks to hold offenders accountable for their actions while respecting them and helping them to feel a commitment and responsibility to their communities.

Sharon’s grandfather, who had “a huge impact” on her, served as attorney general of Missouri and later as a judge as she was growing up.  She remembers talking with him by phone every Sunday and visiting him at least once a year.  It was his influence that inspired her to consider law school and that makes her work with PACT so enriching today.  Though she is not involved in corrections or social work, she retains a fascination for figuring out why people make the choices they do.

Her service on the Pines Village board, she notes, gives her greater understanding of issues affecting seniors.  And that, she says, has helped her better understand her 76-year-old mother, who resides at an independent living facility in central Indiana.

In the same way, Pines Village helps Valparaiso and the larger Northwest Indiana community “have the conversation” about engaging and learning from its seniors, Sharon says.

She points to the art shows, video projects, community events and Tour of Duty in honor of World War II veterans as examples of Pines Village’s showcasing of what seniors have to offer.

“We have a lot to learn from them,” Sharon says.

The conversations Pines Village has sparked are of interest to a growing number as the Baby Boom generation reaches retirement age.                                                                                                

“We are all going to be there,” Sharon says of senior citizenship.  Pines Village has begun to show the life choices available to seniors and has made the process more fun, she says.

“It’s not just about aging,” Sharon says.  “It’s about a lifestyle.”

We Celebrate Life is a collection of portraits, in words and photographs, of just some of the wonderful, extraordinary people who live, work and serve Pines Village Retirement Communities. View more >