“They are never going to give this job to a woman,” a friend told Susan Blouch.
She was single, she wasn't a pastor, and she'd spent nearly 30 years in corporate travel.
On paper, Susan was a long shot. She applied anyway.
In this episode of the RKD Group Chat podcast, Susan walks us through the improbable route she took to become Executive Director of Lebanon Rescue Mission.
She worked in corporate travel for 30 years and ran her own travel business until it closed in 2010. A friend nudged her toward the mission's first development role. Two years later, after volunteering to fill in as interim, she had the permanent job.
Her career says something most hiring managers miss: Titles tell you where a person has been. Skills tell you what they can do. Corporate travel taught Susan to manage crises, read people, and think on her feet, and every bit of it carried over.
She led through capital campaigns, a renovation, and a fight with the zoning board by leaning on faith, good counsel, and the next step in front of her.
In the episode, Susan shares how Lebanon Rescue Mission is building a 25,000-square-foot facility with 40 private rooms for women with children and for seniors.
Roughly 45% of their guests are over 65, many of them homeless for the first time after a lifetime of work. As Susan puts it, "Nobody in their seventies and eighties should be in a bed in a dorm."
She also digs into intergenerational mentorship, a possible social enterprise for older residents, and why she guards her staff from burnout.
Her order is fixed: God, family, work. And she keeps learning to tell the outside noise from the voice worth following.
In this episode, Susan shares:
- How a 30-year career in corporate travel prepared her for nonprofit leadership
- Why nonprofits should evaluate candidates by their skills, not just their titles
- What it means to lead as a woman and non-pastoral executive in a faith-based organization
- How Lebanon Rescue Mission is adapting to the rise in senior homelessness
- Why private rooms can restore dignity for older adults experiencing homelessness
- How intergenerational mentorship is emerging within the shelter
- Why protecting staff from burnout is essential to sustaining the mission
- How to distinguish between outside noise and the voice of truth
Meet our guest
Transcript
Nipa Eason: Welcome to the RKD Group Chat podcast, where we bring you behind the scenes of nonprofit life. We shed light on the compassion and purpose behind the individuals solving the world's most challenging problems. I'm your host, Nipa Eason.
Today we're talking with Susan Blouch of Lebanon Rescue Mission. Over a decade ago, a friend told her they would never make her executive director. She was a woman, she was single at the time, and she didn't have a background as a pastor. And now, here she is so many years later, leading their many different ministries. We talked about how she got there, what she's experienced over her 17 years at the organization, and her advice to others. Let's chat.
Nipa Eason: Hi, Susan. Welcome.
Susan Blouch: Hello. Thank you so much for having me.
Nipa Eason: We're so excited to have you here. I'm really excited to get to know you and your story. You joined Lebanon Rescue Mission a while ago, but through a nontraditional path. Do you want to share a little about what you studied, where you ended up, and how you connected with Lebanon Rescue Mission? That's a long story, I'm guessing — so we'll go through it piece by piece.
Susan Blouch: OK. All right. It is very nontraditional.
My first connection with the Lebanon Rescue Mission is that I was asked to sit on the board years and years ago — 1999, something like that, or early 2000. I joined the board and served as a board member for several years, then cycled off and went on.
My first career was in corporate travel. I worked for companies that did very large incentive travel.
Nipa Eason: Oh, so different.
Susan Blouch: So different. Very different.
The last thing I did in travel was own my own small business. We specialized in corporate travel, meeting planning, and high-end travel. That was almost a 30-year career in corporate travel.
In college, I studied American history and communications, and I had always intended to go to law school.
Nipa Eason: So different again. Lots of shifts.
Susan Blouch: It's fascinating, though, how the Lord has used all of that to bring me where I am.
The short story is that somewhere around 2009, things were changing dramatically in the travel industry. People were booking their own travel online, and companies in our area were doing less and less incentive travel. So I started really feeling like it was time for a change — but I had no idea what I wanted to do.
Through a lot of prayer, what I was hearing was: you're just going to have to step out in faith. You're going to have to close your business, and then we'll see what's next. And much to the dismay of my family and friends, I did just that. In March of 2010, I closed my business and waited for further instructions.
I went on a lot of interviews for all kinds of different jobs. And one day, a dear friend called and said, "The Lebanon Rescue Mission is hiring a director of development for the first time. They want to build a development program." I said, "That's exciting for them." And she said, "No, no. This has your name written all over it."
Nipa Eason: You didn't think of it as connected to you.
Susan Blouch: Not at all. And she said, "No, listen. Development is just a great party where people leave money behind. You've got the whole skill set for development."
I thought she was wrong, but I also thought, what does it hurt? So I applied, sent my resume, interviewed — and much to my shock, they hired me. It was great fun in the beginning because I was building a development program from scratch.
Then two years later, the executive director left for full-time church ministry, and the executive director position became available. I had offered to step in as a transitional, an interim director. I did not want the position in any way. I had intended to go to retirement as the director of development.
And the rest of the story is that I suddenly found myself, six months later, being chosen by the search committee to be the next director. That's how I got here.
Nipa Eason: So interesting. I think there's real value in sitting with the uncertainty you had to in that transitional period — closing your business, which is so hard when you've built something, and then sitting with that uncertainty. How was that moment for you? You said your family and friends were concerned — or shocked.
Susan Blouch: You know what? It was humbling. It was humbling and it was centering. It was also one of the first times I wasn't working for an extended period, so in that respect, it was great. I would go pick strawberries in the morning and do things I'd never had a chance to do.
But it's humbling when you keep going on these interviews and you're either not qualified at all for the position or you're overqualified. What that taught me — and I think it became the important lesson for me as a future director — is don't just look at the job titles someone has held in their career. Look at the skill set they've built across their different jobs.
That was huge for me. While it sounds ridiculous that someone who was in corporate travel for 30 years would be a good match for a nonprofit, I had built the skill of relationships. I loved people. Travel could be tumultuous, so you learned how to think on your feet. You learned how to manage crisis.
So it really taught me to look at what someone actually did in their work and whether those skills are a good fit for a position we have open.
Nipa Eason: That's so important for nonprofits, because a lot of times you'll have people applying from outside the nonprofit industry, bringing skill sets and, I guess, an attitude about how you handle crisis or decision-making that's so important.
Susan Blouch: Absolutely. For us at a rescue mission, it's compassion and empathy. But you also have to love and enjoy people to do what we do. At your very core, you have to get a kick out of people and all their intricacies, because if you don't, this is not the job for you.
You have to be able to sit with a multitude of personalities, both on staff and among those we serve. It's critical that you be able to navigate all of that.
Nipa Eason: How has it felt, because Lebanon Rescue Mission has been around a long time. From what I understood, you might be the third executive director since the founder? Or the second?
Susan Blouch: I'm the third after the founder, so I'm the fourth executive director in the organization's 81-year history.
Nipa Eason: Which is incredible. And that's a lot to inherit. How does that make you feel on a regular basis — that history you're inheriting?
Susan Blouch: If I think about it too much, it's a bit intimidating.
I'm not only the first woman executive director; when I was hired, I was also the first non-pastoral executive director. And I was a single woman at that time. I'm single, I don't come from a Bible-based degree, and I had never served as a pastor.
I was the long shot for the position. Absolutely the long shot. I had a dear friend say to me, "I love you dearly, and I think you would be great in this job. But they are never going to give this job to a woman." And I said, "OK. But I feel like the Lord is calling me to apply. So that's what I'm going to do, and then I'm going to let Him take it from there."
Then, of course, after I was seated as director, I thought, holy cow. Now what? Now I actually have to do the job.
Nipa Eason: Right. You don't think about that in the moment. You're just taking it a day at a time, going through the steps, seeing what happens. And it happened.
Susan Blouch: And it happened. And now you're like, OK. All right.
Honestly, that first weekend, when I sat with the fact that I was going to be the next director, there was a bit of panic. They've made a mistake. They should not have given this job to me. And then I just said, "You know what, Lord? If this is what you want, then OK. But you and I both know I need you to do this job. So this is on you. I'm going to look to you every step of the way."
At the end of the day, in a gospel rescue mission, the right director is the one who knows they can't do it — who knows we have to rely on someone else and look to the Lord for all of it.
Nipa Eason: That's such a profound way to look at it. I think as women, we go into a lot of roles where we feel that all the time: that we aren't qualified, that we aren't able. How did we get this job? How are we supposed to do this now?
And I love that lens of taking it a day at a time, but also understanding that there's something outside of yourself, relying on your faith and your ability to trust that this is the right place for you to be.
Susan Blouch: Almost immediately, I was tested by community members who really challenged the fact that this role was given to a single woman who wasn't a pastor. I know a lot of women experience that. Honestly, the best thing I did was just turn off that noise.
I didn't feed into it. I didn't listen to it. I didn't absorb it. I thought, if I pull in all that negativity and all that questioning, I'm not going to be able to do this. So I would just keep reminding myself that I was called to this position, and who called me, and that's how we're going to do this.
I'm not telling you there hasn't been some turbulence over the last 17 years, but that's the best way I've found to work through it.
Nipa Eason: So 17 years now with the organization. What have been some of your favorite projects or favorite moments? I'm sure there are many, but maybe a couple that stand out.
Susan Blouch: When I became director, I walked right into a capital campaign. We were raising money. We had bought a property to completely renovate so we could move our men's campus and all our administrative offices.
The best thing about that was that I didn't know what I didn't know. And I was surrounded by really good counsel: experienced fundraisers — not necessarily a high-priced marketing firm or a high-priced consultant, but just good counsel. People who knew how to raise money in our community.
I was also a local girl, and that made a big difference. I went to high school here. I grew up here. My dad owned a business here. It made a big difference.
So the fact that we raised the money we needed, renovated the building, and moved — that was amazing. It was fun and terrifying all at the same time. Again, I didn't know what I didn't know, so you just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
My prayer every day was, "Lord, if I'm getting this wrong, if this isn't what we're supposed to do, then shut it down. Don't waste my time. Shut it down and point me in the right direction." That's been the prayer any time we've gone in a new direction: if we're getting this wrong, stop it. But if we're getting it right and this is what you want, then keep opening the door and we'll keep going.
Nipa Eason: That's such an intense project to walk into.
Susan Blouch: It was crazy. It was just crazy — because we had applied to our zoning board and had actually been turned down. Then, through a technicality, we were able to challenge it and appeal. So imagine: brand-new executive director, never did a capital campaign, and now I'm challenging our zoning board in our own community. Not really a great way to come out of the gate.
But it all worked beautifully. It really did. It was His design and His plan, and it worked.
Nipa Eason: And you're in the middle of another capital campaign right now, too, right?
Susan Blouch: We are. I can look out my office window across the street at a property I have been praying about for 11 years. If we were ever going to expand again, that was the property. "Wouldn't it be great, Lord, if you just got us that property and we could bring the whole ministry to one street?"
The efficiency and cost-effectiveness of a one-street campus just made practical sense to me in every way. But honestly, I didn't think I was going to get to see it come to fruition.
I had started talking with my board about what a transition of leadership would look like here — when I would go to retirement and how that would work. And I really thought, I won't get to see it while I'm here. Maybe the next director will have that same vision and do it.
And within a couple of months of that transition conversation, the property across the street was put on the market, unexpectedly.
Nipa Eason: It's a sign.
Susan Blouch: Literally a big sign.
Nipa Eason: Literally.
Susan Blouch: The Lord was just like, "I have one more thing I want you to do."
And not without drama, but we bought the property in December of 2024. We got zoning approval in March of 2025. And just last week, we started construction on the new facility.
Nipa Eason: Congratulations. That's incredible. Tell us a little about this facility.
Susan Blouch: It will be 25,000 square feet. If you can envision a small two-floor motel, that's really what we're building, a small motel with 40 private rooms.
Our current campus is dorms, so communal shelter. The new facility will have 40 individual private rooms plus all the program space. And it will serve women with children and, incredibly, seniors experiencing homelessness.
Forty-five percent of those we're serving today are over the age of 65, which is shocking. Right now, even before the new facility, we have 60 beds a night, and over half of them are filled by people over 65.
And it's not a fluke. We started to see the pattern, and it's consistently growing. So we desperately need the new facility, because those guests are untraditional guests for us. The goal is getting them into affordable senior housing, but even if we put them on a wait list the day they arrive, we're still talking 14 to 18 months before they get into their own housing. That's a long time.
The new facility will be set up much better for someone to stay with us for that length of time.
Nipa Eason: For that waiting period. And a private room — for someone over 65, that's incredible.
Susan Blouch: It's just so much more dignity. Nobody in their seventies or eighties should be in a bed in a dorm. They just shouldn't.
These are not men and women who have ever experienced homelessness before. Most of them worked all their lives. Unfortunately, their retirement is their Social Security and maybe a little additional retirement income, and it's not enough for community housing.
Nipa Eason: And that's the trend you've been seeing with seniors. That's gonna serve such an incredible purpose.
Susan Blouch: It's just so different. It has changed everything about what we do.
We had one night this past winter where we had an 18-year-old and an 81-year-old, and everything in between.
If there's any good news out of the story of serving seniors, it's that our senior guests are mentoring our younger guests. They're also a cautionary tale: "Listen, you need to get yourself together." Our younger guests are saying, "Are you telling me I could still be here when I'm 70?" Yes, if you don't change your life, your homelessness has no end.
So there's been a real, unique change in the community inside our building.
Nipa Eason: That's such an interesting outcome. Are you thinking about developing more programs around that mentorship piece?
Susan Blouch: We really are. We're looking at two things. One, purposely mentoring — intentionally connecting our older guests with our younger guests.
And two, 18 months is a long time to be here. They don't want to go to class, and we don't want them just sitting here waiting. So we're trying to figure out how to make them feel needed and purposeful.
I would love to come up with an enterprise that uses the talents of our seniors, so they feel needed and wanted and we're able to raise some needed resources. That's kind of my prayer right now — figuring out how to connect the guests we're serving with a potential social enterprise.
Nipa Eason: Oh, interesting. And that would give them a lot of opportunity, and something to see for their future.
Susan Blouch: To feel like, out of this really challenging time, something good is coming from it. I'm not quite sure I have all the pieces to that, but I certainly have the dream of it. I think it's out there — I'm still finding the right answers.
Nipa Eason: I love that.
Thinking through this, I imagine seeing these situations and stories can be incredibly challenging and heavy on a day-to-day basis. How do you navigate that for yourself? One of the questions I ask sometimes is about this: working for nonprofits, a lot of times you're putting everything you have into the role. I can see you're doing that, too. How do you take care of yourself?
Susan Blouch: That has been really heavy on my heart — not just for me, but for the other directors who serve under me and the rest of our staff. Our director-level positions are tough. They're leading teams that are on the front line.
You can't unsee and unhear the things you're seeing and hearing every day. There's so much trauma in the guests who come to us that you can't help absorbing some of it.
So we're doing a lot of new training to help our staff stay empathetic and compassionate, but not carry that home from this building or let it build up. And — I'm not telling you I do this well — really trying to build strong boundaries so that there is time when you truly step away. No cell phone, no email, no phone calls.
You have to carve out that time to just be Sue, doing the things Sue likes to do, without any level of responsibility, for some period of the year. You just have to.
For anyone running a nonprofit — and certainly a homeless shelter — the noise involved in your job day to day is deafening. You have to find a way to get away from it.
Nipa Eason: That makes a lot of sense. And I appreciate that you're doing training and recognizing this as an issue you're seeing across your staff. It's so important for them to have the tools to navigate it while, like you said, retaining their empathy and compassion.
Susan Blouch: Over the last year or so, we've said, "Look, the Lord has provided us with a really incredible team. Let's not lose them. Let's not burn them out."
Let's figure out how we protect that. That's our greatest asset right now. What do we do to make sure we're protecting it? We protect it by making sure they can do their job as well as they can without such a terrible personal toll — on family, on finances, on physical and mental health.
Nipa Eason: That's amazing. It's really nice to see an organization recognizing this and creating solutions for it. The hardest part is the burnout people experience in these types of roles — and you lose really good people because of it.
Susan Blouch: Absolutely. We've always said, "God, family, work." And I didn't want that to be just something we said. I really want our staff to put God and family first.
And when you put your family first, sometimes that's an inconvenience to ministry. Sometimes it's going to throw off our day here. And that's OK, because that's the right order.
I don't want someone missing critical time with their family — in a family crisis or whatever the event is — because they didn't feel like they could step away from work. You're never going to have a healthy team if that's how they feel.
Nipa Eason: Completely agree.
So, I've been curious about the text behind you on the wall. Do you want to talk a little about that?
Susan Blouch: Sure. It's lyrics from a Casting Crowns song. It became so important to me in that first year as director, because there was so much noise from the community outside the organization.
I had to learn to find His voice. I had to — because there was no end to the number of people who wanted to help me do my job better.
Nipa Eason: Always.
Susan Blouch: "Let me tell you how you should do this." Right?
I heard that song one day driving to work, and I just said, "Yep, there it is. For me, that's going to be my key. That's how I'm going to survive this — I'm going to be able to distinguish between the noise and His voice."
Scripture tells us that sheep always know the shepherd's voice. So it felt like that was something that had to be right on my wall, reminding me every day that there's only one voice we need to listen to. I'm not telling you I do that well every day, but the reminder is there.
Nipa Eason: You try to be consistent. That's all you can really do, right?
Susan Blouch: Yep.
Nipa Eason: We can't strive for perfection. Just consistency.
Susan Blouch: For sure.
Nipa Eason: Susan, thank you so much for this great conversation. It's been wonderful hearing your story, and I really appreciate your time.
Susan Blouch: Thank you so much. It was great to be with you.
Nipa Eason: This was such an insightful chat. Here are three takeaways I got from our conversation with Susan that I would take back to my nonprofit.
- She was a long shot for the executive director role — a woman, single, and not a pastor. Don't just look at someone's titles over the years; look at their skill set.
- You don't know what you don't know. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, and if something isn't working, move on.
- There's no end to the number of people who want to tell you how to do your job. Learn to distinguish between the noise and the voice of truth.
Want to chat with us? Email us at connect@rkdgroup.com. I hope I hear back from you — and either way, I'll chat with you next month.
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