GREENVILLE — Julie (Bragg) Lecklider has assumed the duties of director at Community Action Partnership (CAP), where she began working in 2003.
She took over the position on July 18.
Lecklider said she was reluctant to take the position when former director, Janey Christman, retired at the end of last year.
“I wasn’t ready,” she said. “My kids were in a lot of sports and activities.”
Then, after the next person who was appointed as director left several months later, Lecklider reconsidered the offer.
“I talked it over with my husband, and our staff, since we are very supportive of each other,” she said. “I talked to Janey Janey [who recently died] before her cancer came back and she wasn’t going to tell me what to do.”
So, Lecklider agreed to take over the second time it was offered; thus was hired in July.
“The Dayton office has been very supportive,” she said.
When Lecklider started working for CAP, she was the Housing Quality Standard (HQS) inspector until Mary Ann Ridenour left and then she became Senior Occupancy specialist until 2012, after which she was assistant director until taking over in July.
The 1991 Ansonia High School graduate said she trained for those first two positions through Nan McKay, a Housing and Urban Development trainer.
Lecklider left CAP for three years to work at Angel Manufacturing, but came back to the agency because “I missed helping people.”
She said most of her work while at CAP has been with Metropolitan as well as Fox Run and Willow Place.
“I worked for Greenville Transit when we had it and helped there for three months before it closed,” Lecklider said. “Then, I worked two years in our senior community transport program, and got training for Fox Run and Willow Place. I filled in out there and I still do if she needs help.”
Lecklider, who took classes in insurance and travel at JVS her junior and senior years of high school, also took classes at Edison State Community after graduation while working part-time at Kmart before coming to CAP.
Now, she oversees the 15 employees as well as CAP’s programs: Community Transportation, Darke County Metropolitan Housing, Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, Darke County Emergency Homeless Shelter, Ohio Benefit Bank, in-house Salvation Army, Camp Swonkey, Home Energy Assistance, Home Weatherization Assistance, Clothing Bank and Bridge the Gap. CAP is also in charge of Fox Run and Willow Place housing areas; Fox Run for seniors and Willow Place for multi-families.
She said she has no immediate plans of changing anything in the local programs.
“We’re adjusting,” she said. “Most of the staff has been here a while. Carol Littman is now the assistant director. We have a new inspector, Jennifer Lopez, starting Monday and we’re looking for a maintenance person.”
The daughter of Tom and Connie Kaiser and Mark [who died Wednesday night] and Vickie Bragg, Lecklider met husband Matt in 2000 and they were married two years later. A graduate of Greenville High School and son of Mike and Diane Lecklider, he is a sixth-grade math teacher at Arcanum Elementary.
The couple has two children, Caden, 12, and Kiera, 8.
Much of her spare time, she said, is spent with her children’s activities.
“I help my coach my daughter’s cheer team and help her softball coach and I attend my son’s swim team events,” said Lecklider, who was active in softball in her own high school days. “I also love scrapbooking and shopping.”
