I am a third-generation owner of a family business. Statistically, we shouldn’t be here. More than 80 percent of family businesses never make it past the second generation.

The coroner’s office is charged with taking care of the rights of the person who died. Every body is treated with great respect.

I have never been stopped because I am a woman. I have worked in health care, where women can move freely with excellent performance.

Every morning when I sit on the bench, I think, “Wow, am I really here? This is reality.”

Becoming a judge has been such an important goal of mine for quite a while.

My memories of childhood are filled with travel, mostly from the back of a station wagon. Until I was 14, my dad’s job involved visiting the southeastern U.S., and we’d go as a family whenever possible.

It was just a summer job, but already I was walking in with a major strike against me: I was a woman. When I took my first job in government — special events coordinator for the city of Chicago — I was one of only a handful of women in that line of work.

I am a tutor and a believer. Maybe I’m really just a dreamer, but I feel like I want to save the world. I love seeing the light bulb go on for a child, no matter what it takes.

From my earliest years, I have been told to “quit worrying about what others are doing” and “mind your own business.” My parents and the good nuns of St. Hugo Grade School were the best at it. That wasn’t what God had in mind.

In life, if you help one person, you feel good.

Personally, I wish I could help everyone. Thanks to my job as a bilingual outreach worker, helping is my job.

At a recent party I found myself in conversation with a prominent local businessman who was lamenting the lack of available leadership in our community. His titanium heart valve was going click, click, click, but if he stepped down from his volunteer posts, who would step up? This was actually my third such conversation in as many weeks.