Dorinda Rolle was surprised when stepping off the plane in Tanzania, the native women came to her asking questions in Swahili. She grinned and told them, “Oh, no I’m not from here.” But if it were not for her makeup and American clothes, she looked like these intelligent women from this sub–Saharan country who spoke three languages.
Sitting on the grass floor of the village church, hours and days later Dorinda taught over 100 women in three workshops about starting small businesses, keeping the books, getting grants, overall economic advice and instruction. All the women, including Dorinda, were barefoot and wearing traditional African clothes.
For Dorinda, the mission to Africa was a culmination of years of organizing and teaching women’s groups, Bible study, workshops, and work in the ministry.
Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Dorinda came to Texas as a little girl to visit her grandfather and other relatives, not knowing that one day she would return to make San Antonio her home.
Dorinda’s parents emphasized the importance of education when she was growing up. Her mother told her, “People can take anything from you but your education.” Those words never left her, and today she is showing how a good education can pay off.
Now a small business owner, leader, motivational speaker, strategic planner, consultant, PhD student, and active Christian, Dorinda is well positioned to help others help themselves.
Presently, Dorinda and her business partner David Patrick own Transition Management Solutions, LLC, an executive placement service placing leaders into non–profit organizations when they are needed unexpectedly.
In 1977, Dorinda married a certified minister who was in the air force and they began a life of ministry, travel and raising a family together. They first lived on the Island of Crete, then Guam for three years. While on that Pacific island, she earned her Bachelors degree in business from the University of Maryland.
After returning to the United States, now with two children, Dorinda and her family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where her husband attended the Oral Roberts University, and she had her third child.
Her husband was later transferred to Kansas where Dorinda became the director of the Small Business Development Center for Wichita. Dorinda enjoyed this time of her life in Wichita, Kansas, and this is when she earned her Masters degree in Business and Management.
In a few years, Dorinda found herself back in Texas with her family, where soon she was to face the biggest challenge yet and maybe ever of her life; her and her husband divorced in 2000 after 23 years of marriage.
Fortunately, all of the years following her husband in the military proved an ideal training ground for Dorinda to add practical leadership skills to her formal education. She led and organized women’s groups, Bible studies, worked with volunteers, served on professional boards. She was the president of the Alamo City Chamber of Commerce, served as president, board member, volunteer and member of PTAs, associations and networks throughout San Antonio
At the time of her divorce, Dorinda owned her own business–– Rolle and Associates. Headquartered in San Antonio since 1998, the business mirrors TMS in services like consulting, training in grant writing, board development, conflict resolution, and other nonprofit and corporate business areas.
Facing the empty–nest syndrome when she divorced as well, Dorinda managed to maintain a certain financial stability and status quo for herself and her youngest daughter. Dorinda’s phone started ringing off the hook during this period. Friends and acquaintances around the city started calling and asking her for help and for her to talk to this woman and that woman.
Dorinda had worked as a director at the Nonprofit Resource Center when she first returned to Texas and was known around town as an expert in her field, especially in the non–profit sector for organizing, pulling resources together, and helping people.
Always the big thinker, organizer, business person and helper, Dorinda said to herself, “I should have a seminar!” She then founded a new company, a nonprofit company, called Empowerment Seminars. Her first seminar was “Divorce Survival Seminar for Women.”
Never forgetting her parents’ training and wise words to get an education, Dorinda went back to school in 2005 to earn her PhD.
Dorinda leads a full and busy life with her business, working on her PhD at the University of Incarnate Word, and keeping speaking engagements every month. At this time, she is traveling around on a Rotary Club circuit in the area speaking about the women in Tanzania, Africa, and trying to raise funds to help them. This project was founded by one of the UIW sisters, Dr. Dorothy Ettling, to help women affected by HIV in Africa. Dorinda has taken up the cause in conjunction with earning her PhD, and plans on returning to Africa next summer to run more workshops.
Dorinda loves to speak. She feels she has a talent for motivational and inspirational speaking. And her dream is to research and write books, and speak on topics that will help women and people help themselves, which is what is at the heart of Dr. Ettling’s project to help women in Africa.
Dorinda thinks big and many of her dreams have already come to pass. People flocked to the Alamodome to hear Mayor Guiliani, Joe Vitale, Jerry Lewis, Zig Ziglar and other motivational speakers speak.
Who knows? One day perhaps this little girl from Washington, D.C., whose mother told her “Get your education, because no one will be able to take it from you,” and whose father brought her to Texas in the summers will be seen on one of these speaking platforms.
