Edwards Family Empowerment

Finally someone from the State called me while I was at work asking if I was still was interested in an Accounts Examiner job I had applied and interviewed for a year earlier. I told him I was still interested and he faxed me a letter confirming my appointment that day. This job was basically performing audits. We use governmental/industry standards and regulations to provide reasonable assurance that the financials are free of material misstatements and that they present fairly the financial position of the State. We also audit individual agencies for compliance with grants, contracts and state and federal laws. These are forever changing. So, we have to obtain continuous education credits each year. I’ve worked with the same agency for the past 25 plus years. The benefits (insurance, retirement, and paid leave) are good. While working with the agency, our agency head encouraged us to obtain our CPA (certification as a Certified Public Accountant). So, I studied and took the tes...

During the second half of the school year my BOE teacher introduced us to bookkeeping with double entry accounting. I had never heard of it. Some of my classmates were struggling but I was making A’s. So, I decided to go to the library and research careers in bookkeeping and accounting. I found that accountants could make good money and there were different area of accounting. That was it! I was going to be an accountant! It paid well, it fit my skills and I actually liked dealing with finances. My mom started teaching me at 4 or 5 years old how to save, count and maximize the use of money. I learned that I would need a four year degree to obtain the type of accounting jobs I wanted. I looked to my older sister, Lisa for a path to get my degree. Lisa had gone to Wallace Community College while staying at home to earn her first nursing degree (LPN). This was affordable and didn’t require taking out student loans. She then attended Auburn University in Montgomery and earned her R...

  Hi Family! I’m L.C., the middle child of Joe and Ruth. One of the things my parents told us often after giving us a task was “Don’t go in there half doing it”. That set the tone for me determining what my career would be. I wanted to find something I could do well. Growing up, I developed a love for music. I sang around the house and listened to music every chance I got. I even toyed with the idea of singing opera. I was attracted to the life style the singers on TV seemed to have and wanted that career and seemingly good life for myself. So, I started preparing myself to become a singer by participating in the school chorus in grades 7-10. I found out I had a high pitched voice that my teacher taught me was referred to as first soprano. My teacher in grades 7-9 was very encouraging. He selected me to assist in his classroom and even selected me to sing a solo for our concert. However, my 10th grade teacher didn’t seem as impressed with my singing. She had a small select...

3. My third major career decision was to remain devoutly focused in the face of adversity. Failure was never an option. I leaned heavily on 2Corinthians 12:9, as I still do. I worked there for a year, it was third shift working at night, but I was always stopping by campus every week to read all the job postings. I desperately wanted to be in pharmaceutical research and on the biologics side. And finally one day, I saw what I was looking for and finally got into The Upjohn Company as a Research Associate. My first salaried position with benefits and paid vacation. It was here that I learned many surgical techniques, on many different species. I was even doing angioplasty on pigs & delivering nanoparticles to reverse plaque narrowing in arteries (atherosclerosis). I also got to write many technical papers and get published in professional journals like the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology. 4. My fourth major career decision was to take a job doing what I didn’t ...

I am the son, and only child of Willie Dean (Edwards) Turman, and Eugene Coker; both of Selma, AL. I’ve only met my biological father a handful of times, but my mother married Henry Turman in 1976, he adopted me, and he raised me and loved me throughout the rest of his life. We lived in Detroit for a few years after that, but left east Detroit as the city began to rapidly deteriorate. The Detroit of my youth was a grand and beautiful place; I miss it. It was at the end of summer in 1978 that we made our way to the small, quiet farming community of Litchfield, Michigan, and that is when this city boy began to learn how to do many things working our small produce and pig farm. In preparing to write this bio about the various careers I’ve had, I instinctively fast forwarded to all the things I’ve done since graduating from Western Michigan University, but life has a way of sometimes leading you back across paths you’ve already walked, and I must admit, many of the skills I learned on...