Summary: Claudia Caballero of Honduras is the new operations manager for Orrville-based CAMO. Caballero, whose mother is from Illinois, brings a new bicultural perspective to the organization.
These days, the petite, dark-haired girl working the forklift and moving heavy boxes from one side to the other in the CAMO warehouse in Orrville smoothly conducts day-to-day operations in two countries, in two languages. She may be one of the few people in this world whose Spanish is tinged with an honest-to-goodness Midwestern accent, instead of her native Honduran.
Claudia Caballero, 26, is the new operations manager of Orrville-based Central American Medical Outreach, a medical mission serving Honduras. Caballero, who has a business degree from the Catholic University in Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras, is the daughter of an American and Honduran. One of five children, her mother is a former Peace Corps volunteer from Illinois, and her father is a Honduran agronomist and engineer. The two also own the popular Weekends Pizza in Santa Rosa. Their eldest daughter Claudia ran the pizza place, managing 10 full-time employees.
In late June, Caballero made the move to join CAMO in Orrville.
"I wanted to be part of something that was bigger than myself. I can touch more lives here than by running my restaurant," Caballero said. "The job description (of business manager) fit so many things I felt I could do."
Caballero served as a translating volunteer for CAMO for about 10 years, while she was in high school and college. She also spent a year in Germany working as a volunteer. She has family in the US, and has spent significant amounts of time living and visiting with relatives before taking the CAMO job.
Caballero also pointed out that the Honduran-based CAMO staff has been school or college classmates of hers and she knows them well.
For CAMO volunteers Dr. Ron and Beth Pycraft of Wooster, Claudia Caballero is like a child of their own.
"Ive always been very impressed with Claudia," Ron Pycraft, an optometrist, said. "She is very bright and shes very articulate and she has an empathy for the people (in Honduras) were dealing with thats far beyond any of the other people Ive had (as a translator)." Caballero began her CAMO stint working with Pycraft and Judy and Dr. John Thomas, in the eye clinic in Honduras.
"I love Claudia," Beth Pycraft added. "Shes just one of the very special people in this world."
In between sorting and moving boxes, Caballero figures into the logistics and growth of the charitable organization. "I make sure our warehouse moves," she said, smiling. She sorts donations and gets them into the right hands of the Honduran and American professionals who need them to save lives. Her job is to sort and find the supplies needed in Santa Rosa and surrounding Honduran villages. As a native to Honduras, she knows the needs and knows what CAMO can do to help, and what may be a not so helpful.
For Kathy Tschiegg, CAMO director and founder, Claudia Caballero is a perfect fit.
"Its very important we work with counterparts in Honduras. I we dont understand those needs, we cant meet them," Tschiegg said. She added that the CAMO boards of directors in the US and Honduras wanted to "find someone who can meet the needs." CAMO pairs American professionals in many fields, especially medicine, with Hondurans doing the same thing, their counterparts, to teach them new ideas, train and donate new equipment, and find solutions to help the Hondurans help themselves, and have a sense of sustainability while employing locals who know their own population well.
Tschiegg added that CAMO wanted someone who had business knowledge and was completely bilingual. The boards also wanted someone who understood the cultures of both the US and Honduras. Caballero fit the description. The hope is to streamline each operation, in Orrville and Honduras, with identical goals and direction.
"By reorganizing we are better able to meet precise needs," Tschiegg said, adding "Claudia is a perfect fit." She pointed to Caballeros knowledge as well as a "passion of volunteerism.
"It will help us have better service for our 16 programs," Tschiegg noted. Those programs provide around 140,000 services annually.
With Caballeros savvy, CAMO can quickly eliminate the in-kind donations that cant be used. "It helps us know what is an appropriate in-kind donation and what is an inappropriate in-kind donation Claudia is a watchdog for this," Tschiegg said.
Tschiegg noted that the economic downturn has meant that donations, too, have dropped. The group hopes that by streamlining operations, and becoming more efficient, knowing right away what works and what wont, CAMO can provide the same quality of services with shrinking resources.
Caballero and the young Honduran staff are media- and social network-savvy, and CAMO has a presence on Facebook, as well as an e-mail list, and a newly designed web page at Camo.org.
For Caballero, the transition from one culture to another has not been hard. Beloved by many of the CAMO volunteers from Orrville, Wooster, Holmes County, as well as other parts of the state and country, she has a network of friends already established.
"I absolutely love my job," she said, smiling. Currently, she is involved in Leadership Wooster and said her job transition in the US is "very easy, because I know so many people here."
Caballero and some of the Honduran staff will be at CAMOs annual Salsa Sizzle fundraising party, August 20, at the Wooster Inn. Tickets can be purchased at the CAMO office, on the corner of Penn and Westwood avenues in Orrville, or at Buehlers in Wooster and Orrville, or the Wooster Inn. Proceeds benefit CAMOs domestic violence shelter in Santa Rosa.
CAMO will also host a Sangria Sunset Party in Orrville, Sept. 24. Caballero is already looking forward to meeting folks at the organizations booth at the Wayne County Fair, noting shes heard a lot about the fair and is excited to experience it.
