Page 73 - FDCC Pandemic Book

Being asked to lead, especially during such a critical time for any company, was not something that I could turn down. Even more importantly, I was the first woman in the firm’s history elected to its management committee, which meant the role went even beyond me, and had heightened meaning, especially for the women at the firm.
Office
2 020 was a transformative year, to say the least. Perhaps what is most unusual is that it was probably the most difficult year I had personally, but it was very successfully professionally. In short, it was a year of juxtapositions, continuous challenges and unexpected twists and turns. However, what this year has taught me more than anything is that resilience and adaptability is most critical, especially
when others are following your lead.
January got off to a rocky start when my 69 year old father had a steep decline with recently diagnosed Alzheimer’s Disease/Lewy’s Body Dementia. For the past eleven months, I had been taking my father to neurologists and other medical providers to try and figure out what was going on with him medically. Ten years prior my mother suffered a debilitating stroke at age 58 and my father stepped up to care for her. My father was hospitalized when I was enjoying a long MLK weekend with my family in Edinburgh, Scotland. The rest of the month of January 2020, I spent speaking with physicians trying to figure out what was going on with my father and spending time at the hospital daily between calls or in the evenings, since my mother could not get to the hospital. Eventually my father was transferred to a nursing home in a
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CAROLINE J. BERDZIK
Goldberg Segalla Princeton, NJ