Kayla Kolar
Kayla Kolar has been in nonprofit executive leadership for over 30 years and currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of House of Refuge since Jan. 1, 2021. Prior to that, she was President and CEO of HD SOUTH, Home of the Gilbert Historical Museum, for 15 ½ years, where she led the organization through most of a $2 million capital campaign and a complete rebranding from a history museum to a complex arts and culture nonprofit. Before that, she was the Executive Director for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, the Deputy Director of the Desert Botanical Garden, and a Division Sales Manager with the National Federation of Independent Business. While at the Garden, she chaired the annual Luminaria event and was the lead project manager for a $17 million capital campaign and expansion.
Kayla holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Illinois State University. She is a graduate of Gilbert Leadership Class XIV, was on the Gilbert Leadership Board of Directors for seven years, is a past president of the board, and is a past recipient of the Gilbert Leadership Award. Kayla is a graduate of the Gilbert Citizens Police Academy. Previously she has served on the boards for the Central Arizona Museum Association and the Museum Association of Arizona ,was a national officer for Phi Beta Lambda, Inc., and is a past recipient of the Chandler Gilbert Community College Silver and Teal Award. Kayla is currently involved in the Gilbert, Mesa, and Queen Creek Chambers of Commerce. She has been a volunteer for such organizations as United Way, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Future Business Leaders of America, and the March of Dimes.
Episode Transcription
Guiding Growth. Conversations with Community Leaders. In this podcast, we'll explore the human journey of leaders, their stories of humility, triumph, roadblocks and lessons learned, come join us as we journey together and uncover the questions you've always wanted to know. This podcast is brought to you by the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, providing resources, connections and belonging for business professionals and modern moments, an event and meeting venue in the heart of Gilbert. Today we have an amazing guest with us. We do this guest grew up in a small town in Illinois and has always had a heart for service from trick or treating for UNICEF to singing in nursing homes and serving as a big sister in college.
She has been called to make a difference today. She celebrates more than 30 years of leadership in the nonprofit sector with 15 years leading HD South home of the Gilbert Historical Museum and now the CEO of House of Refuge. Those who know her can tell you she is the first to know the first to call and the first to show up and she is most proud of her three favorite sons. She is Kayla Kolar. Welcome. To the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very pleased to be here.
We're excited to have you. We're going to start out with what we call rapid fire round. Okay. You go first there. Would you rather find your dream job or win the lottery? Win the lottery? Because then I could have my dream job. Yes, with that. What is your guilty pleasure? Probably Binging on Netflix. Would you rather host a party for all of your friends or enjoy dinner for, to enjoy a dinner for two? What's on your nightstand? Nightstand has a box of tissues, vitamins. My Fitbit charger.
Exciting all the essentials. All right. Speaking of Netflix, what's the last TV show? You binged white Lotus fill in the blank. Success is doing the next right thing. What song makes you smile? The theme song from Laverne and Shirley. And that goes, this isn't singing out. What song makes you smile already asked that question or? But welcome to, more cautious or bold. Depends on the situation. Both. What is your favorite rainy day activity other than Binge watching Netflix, cuddling with my dogs. Final question. What is one thing you're grateful for?
Oh, my goodness. There's not just one thing I'm grateful for my family, my friends, the work that I do so much, so much. Well, I can see that in you all the time. This podcast is brought to you by Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, recognized as one of the top 100 best hospitals by HealthGrades Mercy. Gilbert Medical Center is a full service acute care not for profit community hospital, providing exceptional health care to the East Valley with a staff of 30 1800 employees and 643 volunteers. Patients can expect the expertise of more than 900 physicians representing all major specialties.
Mercy Gilbert Medical Center is proud to be part of the local community and an award winning employer. Learn more at dignity health dot org forward slash Arizona. A lot packed into that. Let's unpack it, shall we? I like to start in the beginning. And so we talk about your youth and when you were growing up and where was that? And what was that like? Fill us in? I grew up in a very small town, 4000 people then and now in Southern Illinois, we considered ourselves Southerners. I remember in high school one time our English teacher asked us uh to write down on a piece of paper if we were from the north or the south.
And everyone wrote down, we were from the south. We were seven hours from Chicago. So very small town. Everybody knew everybody. Um and uh and I mean, everybody was involved in everything. Um did a lot with my church. I grew up as a Southern Baptist and uh all that involved. And um it was, it was a good experience in hindsight. I would not go back to a small town though, but it was good for growing up. Like your high school graduating class size 79 in 1979. That's easy to remember. Okay.
So you talked a lot in, um, shared with us about your service and your, your heart for serving. Where did that come from? Where your parents really involved? Not really. I think it came from one being in a small town and that's what we did and being so involved in everything and a lot was from my church. Um I was in a youth group and I mean, from a young child, we were in groups at church and we would always go out and do things and serve in the community.
And you had mentioned trick or treating for UNICEF that was probably the very first doing things for um nursing homes. Um I was a girl scout so we were always doing things and that just kind of stayed with me for my whole life. Everything I've done. I've always done something to give back into the nonprofit world, especially dancer, dancer, dancer and M V P of her high school volleyball team. Now I was, I was just a very active involved kid. I was in volleyball, I played softball.
Um I was in every club that you could think of took every kind of lesson from twirling a baton to tap dancing, ballet, dancing, jazz dancing. You wouldn't know it today. But um that was just what I, how I grew up on what I did. There is always a really strong connection between parents and family and the influences they had talked about your home life there. What were your parents involved in? And how do they influence you when I was an infant? When I was born, my dad was a fireman and he uh when I was just born, he fell off a ladder truck and he broke his back.
So when I was about eight months old, my mom sent me to live with her sister in Northern Indiana because he was in a body cast for over six months and she really had to take care of him. So my aunt always told the story that when my mom came to get me because she couldn't visit very often back then. And when she came to get me, I didn't know her. And so my mom was just devastated because she had lived to have a baby. My mom had seven miscarriages before I was born.
So she really, I was the miracle baby. So, um then when my dad couldn't be a fireman anymore, he tried to work for the police department for a little while, but he ended up being a truck driver for the teamsters, so very blue collar job and he worked really, really hard. Uh, and, uh, and my mom did a variety of things. I have one younger sister and she now lives in California. But she had a lot of health challenges when she was little. So my mom would always take care of her and that's what I remember.
And I think that's probably part of the reason I was so active because mom was so busy taking care of everybody. And I just had to kind of entertain myself and I was in clubs, I read a lot. Uh and just, just needed something to do. So, very loving family though. Everybody. That's how the small town feel was there. Absolute. So you graduate high school in 79? And what happens next? It's interesting as I thought about doing this podcast with the two of you. I was thinking back over my life and how did I make decisions that I made?
And while I tend to think of myself as a very logical, rational person, I don't know that the decisions I've made that have brought me to where I am today where that rational or logical when I was a junior or senior in high school, my youth group at church went to Illinois State University which was five hours north of Carter Ville where I grew up and we went to uh it was like a missions camp and we were like evangelizing out on the streets at the college campus.
And what really struck me though was the campus itself and I really kind of fell in love with that campus. So there was just no question when I was trying to figure out where I was going to go to college. That was it. And I didn't apply anywhere else. I just knew that it was far enough away from home that I could get back if I needed to. But I wouldn't go there every weekend and drive five hours. Northern Illinois. Right. North central. Not, not as far as Chicago.
Chicago was still three more hours away. So, uh, but I went to I S U and graduated from there thought that I had, well, I went intending to be a business education teacher in high school. And my sophomore year in college, I got into the classroom and it was not a good experience. So I thought no, I like teenagers but I am not going to be a teacher. So I have all the respect in the world for teachers, but that was not my path. So I just majored in business administration and I actually had a job with standard oil in Chicago when I graduated.
But in the meantime, I had fallen in love and so I moved to Oregon across the country thinking maybe I was gonna get married. That was a bold move. So that was the time I was very bold. Uh And most people thought I was kind of crazy, but so I followed my heart, not my head, which usually isn't typical of me. Got to Oregon, things didn't work out after a year, but I had worked for an insurance agency there and I had gone to Safeco Insurance company in Seattle for a lot of trainings had met a lot of people and I, but I knew I needed to leave Oregon.
I was now in a small town in Oregon and I didn't know anybody. So, and here again, not a rational decision, but I was literally um making job interviews in three places across the country where I knew people in Denver, in Fresno and in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. And I was driving down the road one day just praying, saying God, where am I going to go? Because I truly didn't know where to go. And right at that exact moment, John Denver came on the radio singing Rocky Mountain High.
So I said there's my sign, I'm going to do no logic behind that at all. So that's where I went. So I went to Denver and it's interesting how, when you make choices like that, how different my life would have been if I had gone to Fresno, California, uh I don't know what would have happened, but I think everything has turned out pretty well. So, okay. So talking about your three boys and some of the risks that you took when you were their age. Are they, do you see that in them?
Are they risk takers as well? Sort of my middle son is more the risk taker. I think he's probably the one that's most like me in that regard. Uh He just got his uh M B A from Park University in Gilbert. So I'm very proud of him for doing that. He um is very idealistic though and he will take risks. But I think kids today and young people today are just very different than when I grew up and I think in some respects it's harder for them.
Um the world has changed so much, you know, during that time. And um I, I just think that the challenges that they have to face um are just different and, and not that I worry about them because I think they all have good heads on their shoulders and I think that they'll be fine, but I think it's just a little bit harder. Do you think our parents thought about us? Probably so, probably, probably okay. So take us back to Denver. So now you end up in Denver.
What happened? Well, in Denver, I ended up working for Safeco Insurance company as an underwriter. So I used my connections that I had made in Oregon and I got hired there as an underwriter. I stayed in Denver for five years. I didn't like being in that office, but I, I thought I made a logical decision and moved from Safeco to working for a life insurance company doing sales. So I went from insurance to insurance. That made sense in my mind. And I found out I was very good at sales.
So I did really, really well, but I did not like selling insurance. So that was not my passion. But I went to work for the National Federation of Independent Business. And a neighbor of mine when I was growing up in Illinois had worked for N F I B and I knew about that from him. So I reached out to him when I saw this ad and he kind of connected me. So then I went to work for N F I B in Denver and I loved it.
I did very, very well. Uh I was just calling on businesses similar to the chamber work. And uh and I loved doing that and then I got promoted very quickly. And by uh after four years, I was managing a four state area and they transferred me and at first they were transferring me to Salt Lake City and my boss came to me and said, will you go to Salt Lake? Well, I knew one person in Salt Lake and I thought, okay, they have snow in Denver has snow makes sense, okay.
I'll go to, I'll go to Salt Lake. And then the other person that they were going to promote, he was married and his wife said, uh they were going to move him to Phoenix and she said, anyplace but Phoenix. So my boss came back to me and said, would you go to Phoenix instead of Salt Lake? And at the time. I thought I'm young. I'm single. It's an adventure. Let's do it. So, that's how I got to Phoenix. But you like snow. But I do like snow.
I have this, um mutual love affair with both the ocean and the mountains. So, but I came to Phoenix. Uh, and the problem was I was traveling 45 weeks out of the year and that was very tough. And being in a new place, I just didn't have the opportunity to meet a lot of people. I would come home on a Friday night. Um, take all my calls from my sales reps, do laundry and all the things I had to do around the house on Saturday, go to church on Sunday and leave from church to go to the airport.
And that was my life and that got old quickly. So your mail was in Phoenix. But you were not correct. Exactly. So, so I loved that job. I ended up at the Desert Botanical garden. So that's got, you know, and again, I thought, well, that's another nonprofit. N F I B was a nonprofit. It was a different kind of non profit, but it was a non profit. And That's where I really learned that I loved working for a cause. And so when I went to the garden, I loved what they did.
Uh, I am not a plant person. Do not let me near the plant. I can't grow them, but I can appreciate their beauty. And I was an administration for the garden, ended up being the deputy director and I was there for 11 years. So, um, so even though you pair, you still pair your logical decisions with your heart, I do, I think I do sometimes it seems irrational looking back, but it made sense to me the steps that I took. Okay. So how do you get to HD South Home of the Gilbert Historical Museum?
I was wondering about when you get to Gilbert in general. Well, I was living in Mesa at the time and while I was at the garden before I went to the garden, I had gotten married at the garden, I had two of my three Children and not at the garden, not the garden. I just wanted to make sure Ben understood. Yes. No, not literally. Uh but I love the garden. But an opportunity came up with the Susan G Komen race for the cure to be the executive director.
So that was a step up. So I took that job, but their office was on the west side of town. It was like northern and over by Baptist Hospital. So I was literally going to work in the dark, coming home in the dark. My kids were little at the time and that was just very difficult. So I just did that for about a year and I started looking for something closer to home and stumbled upon the Gilbert Historical Museum. And they had never had a full time employee, never even had a part time employee, I don't think.
And they were looking for someone and they thought at first they wanted a historian and I kind of came in at the 11th hour of their search. And for those of you that know, Margie Scott and June Morrison and Pat Castaneda, they were the hiring committee and I went in and, uh, Margie said she always took credit for hiring me and she's just a dear lady. But, uh, they hired me and it was like, just starting from scratch and there was nowhere to go. But up. So I think we did a lot in the 15 years that I was there.
And I love that museum. I actually thought I was going to retire there. And again, here was one of those hard things that came along when, um, they placed the ad for the CEO at House of Refuge. A couple of people in the community reached out to me and said, you might want to take a look at this. And I did. But I thought, well, I don't really have a chance to do that because I've never been in direct client services. I've worked for different kinds of nonprofits but, and I know I know how to run a nonprofit.
But, uh, you know, working directly with the homeless, I've never done that and I was very clear with the board when I was going through the interview process, but they were looking for someone to run the nonprofit. So, uh I think again, it was a God thing. I think it was meant to be. I absolutely love, love, love what I do and going to work every day and it's just an amazing place, a miracle every day. Well, Gilbert is uh so fortunate to have had your leadership here at the museum.
And now, obviously, although it's in Mesa, there's a lot of influence there as well through House of Refuge. I'm curious as you look back over your career, who are some of the people that stand out as influencing you. And I know you've had amazing relationships with some of our um our residents here in Gilbert too. There are so many people um that I feel like I've learned from and still impacted by it. I'll throw out Wally Galecki and I dearly love that man. And I remember when I first came to the museum, It was very hard for some of the people who had lived here for a very long time that were older to uh really accept the change that was happening in Gilbert because Gilbert grew very quickly and there was so much um changing.
It wasn't that small town that they had known their whole life. Like last week I came to the museum in 2005. So there was just so much growth and I could give you the stats because I wrote a book, but I won't give you the stats. But, but I remember this one gentleman, um, he was an elderly guy and he was not happy that they hired a director for the museum. It had nothing to do with me. And I knew that, but I felt that I needed to educate him, you know, and really teach him, you know, why and, and what was happening in the town and, and why the museum needed to go to the next level and he just would have nothing of it.
And so we were kind of going around and around and he would get really upset if I would move anything in the museum. The front office used to be right up by the front door. Well, every time somebody walked in, they'd want to talk and that did not make me very productive. So we moved the office. He was not happy about that. So I asked Wally if he would meet with me and this gentleman so that we could talk together. And I remember sitting there and I was trying to explain to him, uh, this gentleman why all this was happening.
And while he starts kicking me under the table, and I'm looking at him and he's kicking me to tell me to shut up, you know, and just listen. And so I learned a very valuable lesson then that and Wally told me this later. It's better to be nice than right. And that has just really stuck with me and if I have a disagreement or if I don't see if I'm with someone, we don't see eye to eye, just shut up and listen and hear what that other person says and try to see it from their viewpoint and it doesn't matter if they're wrong or if I think they're wrong, that's not the point.
The point is just to be respectful and be nice. So, I mean, Wally De Lucky is right up there at the top of the list. It's amazing. He's an amazing individual. Absolutely. Yeah. That's awesome. Good story. And we enjoyed having him on the show to his amazing voices there. So now that you are running the House of Refuge, who's helping you there because that's a lot you have to take in and learn. Right? So certainly you've got some mentors and people that have inspired you in that respect.
Curious who comes to mind, Jonah Switzer. First of all, she was part of the board and is still on the board. She's been on the board of House of Refuge for 15 years, but we now have term limits. So poor Gianna has to go off in June, but she's not gonna go far. Uh, I've told her, uh, she is, um, a wealth of information and I really just, uh, leaned on her heavily my first year at House of Refuge because she had so much institutional knowledge, historical knowledge about what House of Refuge did and how things were run, uh, that I really relied on her heavily.
We have an amazing board, Head House of Refuge. We've really kind of rebuilt everything from the inside out in the last two years. We have an amazing senior staff um that we've put together and the one thing that hasn't changed, um, is what we do for the families, the pandemic changed everything when I arrived there, things were closed. So we really had to spend that first year reopening everything uh to in person services. And um and just what did the families need because it impacted everybody. I mean, the families that we see are different than what they were before and I want to touch on that a little bit.
What are some of them as conceptions for someone who might not know um your clientele or the individuals that you work with? What do you think you could help people? Understand? There are many faces of homelessness. We only serve homeless families so they have to have custody of a minor child. But homelessness could happen to any of us in the blink of an eye if people truly don't have savings. And I just heard a statistic the other day that 64% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck if they have a medical issue, if their car breaks down, if they have any kind of unexpected emergency that will jeopardize their housing.
And again, in the blink of an eye, they could lose their housing, get behind on their rent, uh get behind on their mortgage. And now they're out on the street, most of our families come to us because they're living in their car, they're in a motel, uh they're couch surfing with friends and family and they just didn't have that safety net. So, and we are such um a community of people that come from everywhere else that they don't always have family that are in the state as well.
So it's, it can happen to anybody and it's not uh the down and out that are stuck in the cycle. Always. Um many of our residents are fleeing domestic violence. We had a mom that had a very good job, but she was in a domestic violence situation. She had to flee in the middle of the night. Her husband froze all her assets. She had no access to anything, no family in the area and she was shell shocked. So it's really surprising to me that people just think that, you know, you think you see the people on the street that those are the kinds of people that are homeless.
There are all kinds of people that are homeless and it is there before the grace of God go. Any of us. I appreciate that. I think um sometimes we lose a bit of perspective. Um We're so fortunate in Gilbert and Gilbert is a beautiful community and I think sometimes we think we don't see it when it's really maybe right in front of us. So. Absolutely. And I'll tell you, they just did that point in time count and they won't find a lot of people on the street in Gilbert again because they're hidden and that's who we serve.
And, but I will tell you at House of Refuge, the top four communities that we serve are always in some order, Gilbert Chandler, Phoenix and Mesa. So they are there. All right now. It's time to look ahead. Maybe less so of the business, but more so for you. What's the future look like? I'm not gonna tell you how old I am, but I'm closer to retirement than that. But I don't have any plans to retire. I will work as long as I physically can. So I plan to stay at House of Refuge as long as they'll have me.
And that's my place. I have found my niche. I found my heart and my passion and that's where I will be. I'm in Gilbert. I've been a Gilbert girl. Not as long as you think because my kids were in the Gilbert school district, but we lived in Mesa were in that far east section there. And until the last one graduated from high school, which now was, that was in 2016. I stayed there so that we didn't have to change schools. But as soon as he graduated from high school, I bought a house in Gilbert.
So here we are. So we'll stay in Gilbert. And my son even asked me yesterday. He goes, mom, you need a one story house. So you don't have to go up and down those stairs. And I said, but I just put so much work into this house. I got new floors and new appliances. I redid the backyard and I said, I think I'm gonna stay here for a while. So until, until I can't go up those stairs anymore, but I'm doing fine right now. Awesome. Well, thank you for your service.
I mean, you really are a force to be reckoned with in Gilbert. You do incredible things and you also make yourself available to many others in the community who just for friendship, friendship, or mentorship. And so I'm very grateful to you and all you bring to my life too. Well, thank you. And I'll tell you the Gilbert Chamber and Gilbert leadership has been a huge part of my life and it's all about relationship and that's been my experience in Gilbert. And I think it's because of that, that it's given me opportunity to do what I do.
That's great. Well, thank you for joining us today. It's been a great conversation. Leadership in Gilbert is what this is really about really this, this entire show. But, you know, if you enjoy this show, as I know, you do, please be sure to join our tribe and sign up to receive these notifications of when we have these great guests that come and join us and have these next conversations. So thanks for being with us. We'll talk to you next time guiding growth, conversations with community leaders. Ben, let me ask you a question.
How do you see other community members being involved in this podcast? This is going to be a great opportunity for so many people in the community to have a chance to be heard if they want to tell their story or if they just want to be part of this journey with us and help sponsor in a way that helps bring more people to the table with us. So I think there's many opportunities at hand whether you want to again be on the show, reach out to us, let us know what your story is and how you think you could be part of it.
We'd love to hear from you. Reach out, let us know and we'll see if we can make that connection.
