President-Elect: Laura Karamagi, CTRS, AC-BC, CAM Certificate
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Member At Large: Loren Smith, CTRS
Loren Smith lives in a Duluth, Minnesota where she works as a Community Support Specialist for an organization, CHOICE, unlimited, which provides supported employment for adults with disabilities. While not directly using recreation therapy as a manager at CHOICE, unlimited, Loren strives to incorporate recreation therapy in all she does for her caseload of 18 clients, in addition to all clients the agency serves. For example, she created an experiential social skills class for clients at the agency to take.
As a college student, Loren, was advocate for the recreation therapy major at her university. She helped create a recreation therapy club at the university, serving as secretary, president elect, and president. Furthermore, she helped students get involved in the state and national recreation therapy associations. This work helped Loren realize she loved to be involved and after moving to Minnesota from the warm state of Arizona, recently joined the MTRA board for 2016.
For her internship, Loren worked at a school for adults with Asperger Syndrome and learning disabilities where she ran classes and groups. Loving her work with Autism and adults, she finds her current job rewarding, yet hopes to incorporate more recreation therapy at the organization in the future.
Loren is pursuing her master’s in business administration, which she will complete this spring. Loren believes this education important to her as she does her part to keep recreation therapy a profession and maintaining professionality for specialists in the field.
As a double major in Spanish, Loren also enjoys Hispanic culture and loves to use her Spanish when she can. She also enjoys running, with her third marathon planned for this October. She has a new son and enjoys taking care of him, in addition to spending time with her husband.
She encourages all who enjoy recreation therapy to get involved in some way, and make a difference where they can in their local community.