Monday, April 8th the Peace Islands Institute hosted Asw. Holly Schepisi for Woman’s History Month.Asw Holly Schepisi spoke a little about her background on how she ended up where she is at the moment and what she would like to accomplish in the future.
She started by speaking about how today Margaret Hilda Thatcher the Prime minister of the United Kingdom just passed away. She was Britain’s Conservative Party leader and in 1979 was elected prime minister, who was the first lady to hold the position; she is the perfect example of a woman leader.
Back in high school Asw Holly Schpesi escorted her father, the head of the Bergen County Republican Party to every political function in the state of NJ for most of her high school years that was the foundation what ultimately brought her to what she is doing today. She ended up going to college in Washington, she is the 2nd member of her extended family to go to college, and the first was her father.
While in DC she started interning for Capital Hill for Congresswoman Marge Roukema a member of the U.S house of representatives from 1981 to 2003, no woman has served in Congress from New Jersey since Roukema left office.
She interned for the United Nations, she was in the Presidential leadership program where she had the chance to study in East Europe before the wall came down, and she worked in British Parliament. She had the passion to learn about world governments and ended up getting a degree in international politics and also in psychology. She had the chance to meet a lot of different interesting people from all over the world. She eventually ended up going to Fordham Law School in NY where she worked both sides of every issue. The best learning tool in life, she said is “understand both sides of an issue learn the other person’s side. Later on, she ended up forming her own L.L.C, started her own law practice due to her daughters illness at the time
She learned that if you want to be a leader, you have to be embrace your failures and be willing give up every material thing you have.
In the state of NJ you don’t really find woman leaders in politics, it’s traditionally a male oriented thing. It is important to mentor woman in our community. We need more women, we need different viewpoints, and we need people to put themselves out there.
There was a brief Q&A following the program, many people attended.
We thank Asw Holly Schepisi for accepting our request to speak.
Pictures from the program: