Staff Profile: Mary Rottman Focuses on Making the Pennies Stretch for Non-Profit

By Carole Hawkins

Mary Rottman remembers homes with cracked windows in the struggling South Florida neighborhood where she once lived as a child.

A tornado had come through, and not everyone could afford repairs.

“You’d be stuck with whatever was broken,” she said. “You just made do with whatever you had.”

Today Rottman keeps the books at St. Johns Housing Partnership (SJHP), a place that helps low-income people who are facing the same kinds of repair problems.

Mary is a godsend. Anyone who knows nonprofits know our accounting has to be “spot on,” noted SJHP Executive Director Bill Lazar. “We work on over 300 jobs annually, with lots of repair coding and receipts and she makes sure it all sticks in the right place!”

Hers is quiet work, spent in front of a computer tracking dollars in and out, not swinging a hammer. But her job is what makes the pennies stretch.

“We always want to help as many people as we possibly can,” she said. “We make sure we have enough funds, so we can afford to help the people who need it the most in this moment.”

Rottman formerly worked as a medical receptionist but switched to bookkeeping to help her husband’s security camera business. And while reconciled ledgers don’t make for great dinner conversation, they do make for good marriages. Rottman still helps him today. “It’s something I’ve always enjoyed,” she said. “I love the research, working on a computer, and coming up with the exact correct answer.”