Sarah Grey
Regional Director
Recovery Innovations of North Carolina
I was born to be a scientist. My father is an engineer, and as the fourth of five children in our family, my older siblings one by one followed in his footsteps. Somehow I was the different one, and engineering never appealed to me, but I am fascinated by how things work. Biology and life was my interest, and I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to be – a college professor researcher. How exciting would that be? Figuring out the mysteries of genetics…that’s good stuff. When I got to graduate school and started doing research, reality dawned. I spent over a year repeating the same experiment which involved growing plants on paper towels in 6 week cycles. I rarely ever saw another person. Ok, research wasn’t for me, but I loved the part where I was a Teaching Assistant and got to interact with the students taking intro biology.
So now what? My lifelong goal was not going to work out! Time for Plan B.
In 1991 I received my Master of Social Work degree and got my first job working with people. I learned so much just listening to the stories people had to tell. It was good for me that I like to listen, because those stories helped me through my own struggles. One strength I bring to my work is that I know what it’s like to be the person needing help. In the year’s since receiving my degree, I’ve had a variety of experiences in the field and been promoted many times. These days I enjoy administrative work where I can combine my love of figuring out how things work and my passion for helping. It’s my privilege to be able to bring all of my experiences with me to Recovery Innovations and help build programs that are places of healing and hope for the people we serve.