Good With Money … and Mission

For Chief Administrative Officer Judy Stith, kindness matters as much as numbers.

Words by Kay Kudukis

 

Caldwell, Texas, population 4,000, is where Judy Stith (née Mize) was born, but didn’t stay. First stop was Wichita Falls, Texas, then Tulsa, Oklahoma, until the family found home in Fort Worth, Texas.

Dad was a jeweler who’d taken a steadier, higher-paying job as manager at a cafeteria. Mom was a nurse. Stith likens her to John Nash, the subject of the film “A Beautiful Mind.” “She lived here,” Stith says, pointing to her head. She did not live in their reality.

Her parents divorced when Stith was six, maybe seven. Dad got custody. The oldest boy-twin got a job to help with finances. There were five kids altogether: that twin’s sister, another sister, and their baby brother. Donnie & Marie, and Sonny & Cher, were Stith’s first two concerts, but her tastes would change.

When algebra is mentioned, Stith practically recoils, but she weathered it anyway because it’s a nursing requirement, and she was going to be a nurse like her mom and sister. She was 16 when she began a work-study program and got certified, then staffed, as a phlebotomist at the local blood center. When she graduated high school, she began taking nursing classes at University of Texas Arlington (UTA), then finally took some practical, hands-on, nitty-gritty nursing courses. That’s when she decided nursing wasn’t for her. No touching of things that made her go “Ew!”

 

Finding Love, if Not Career

Stith was still contemplating what career could match her humanitarian instincts when, at 19, she said “yes” to the airman she’d met while babysitting her friend’s toddler. Everything was going great except for that elusive career. She took random jobs, and while cashiering at a convenience store, got robbed. They took some money and took some snacks. Stith took another job.

Stith applied for a receptionist position at an accounting firm, which required everyone take an aptitude test. “I didn’t get that job,” she says, “but they hired me to do bookkeeping, bank reconciliations, and journal entries, and I liked it.”

It may sound odd that someone who despised algebra might enjoy a math-centric job, but Stith says, “I do money. I always put it into money, and it makes sense that way. It’s not quite the same as math.”

Accounting, she found, fit that criteria, and she began classes at UTA. She recalls a professor, for the first half of a very advanced course, who enjoyed humiliating his students. “The class was hard, and he would call you out. I worked full-time, but I did my homework. I was never unprepared.” Still, his class was brutal, but you learned.

 

The Joys of Parenthood

Baby boy Brian came along six years into Stith’s marriage, and five years later, baby boy Ben joined the world. He was just a year old when her husband got laid off from his airplane mechanic job. He got another one at U.S. Airways in Dayton, Ohio, and they moved to Cincinnati, where his family lived.

Stith took a full-time job as the Dayton YMCA’s finance director, and transferred to Wright State University School of Business. “And guess who had joined the faculty?” She shakes her head and laughs. “I had him for the second half of that advanced class.” But because of her past experience with Professor Humiliation, plus her real-life experience, she became her classmates’ go-to for help.

Quick recap: She’s married with two kids, working full-time at a nonprofit, going to school for her degree in accounting, and she still manages to find time to help her college colleagues.

Stith was so laser focused on getting her CPA, she had Brian, 12, hold her homemade flash cards to help her study for the grueling 16-hour test. “He could probably still tell you the formula for how to calculate the gain on the sale of a residence,” she says with a laugh.

In 1996 she had baby girl, Rebecca. A year later, the family of five moved to Arizona, where she had been tapped as CFO at Valley of the Sun YMCA, staying four years.

 

Finding Love: Part Two … Plus DAP Health

Chicanos Por La Causa (CPLC) contracted her to write their policy and procedure manual. When she was done, they wanted her to stay on as vice president. “I liked the people, I liked the culture,” so she stayed for 12 years. When she left, she did some consulting, then spent three years as controller at Goodwill before being offered the CFO position at Horizon Health and Wellness, an FQHC in Arizona.

She was divorced now, and in those 10 years had met David. He was in the food industry. She fell in love, and they married and honeymooned in Napa Valley. He taught her how to enjoy fine wine, and the former rocker was also starting to enjoy his country music. Everything was going great.

Horizon was considering her for their CEO position, and her big sister (her rock) and baby brother had moved closer. What more could Stith want? Then a recruiter called her up and told her about the CFO position at DAP. He was so high on the organization she figured it deserved a peek.

“You’re taking the tour, hearing everything CEO David Brinkman has to say, and what he has to offer, and you think, ‘I want to work here!’ I mean, you just get so hyped up on it,” Stith recalls.

She’s been the CFO since 2019, and post-acquisition, was tapped as chief administrative officer. They’re looking for a replacement CFO, but it’s not easy finding candidates with the same dedication to the mission as the rest of the team. “The passion of this agency for the people they serve in the community they live in is just … there’s not a mean bone in anyone’s body.”

That’s why Stith stays. “I’ve always said, if there’s anything you can be, be kind, and the people at DAP Health just exude kindness. They treat their patients with dignity and with respect. And that’s so, so important.”

Professor Humiliation need not apply.