What's Your Story with Jaime & Stan

What’s Your Story, Nina Waters? From community builder to redefining purpose after retirement

Episode Summary

In this warm, funny, and deeply reflective episode, Jaime and Stan sit down with Nina Waters — longtime nonprofit leader, former president of a major community foundation, and a woman navigating what it really means to start again after retirement. From growing up in Pittsburgh in a tight-knit Italian family, to a decades-long career serving at-risk youth and leading large-scale philanthropy, Nina’s story is rooted in service, relationships, and resilience. Now living in the mountains of North Georgia, she opens up about identity beyond work, making friends later in life, marriage that lasts decades, and learning how to slow down — without losing purpose. This conversation is honest, humorous, and quietly profound — a reminder that reinvention doesn’t stop just because the résumé does.

Episode Notes

In this warm, funny, and deeply reflective episode, Jaime and Stan sit down with Nina Waters — longtime nonprofit leader, former president of a major community foundation, and a woman navigating what it really means to start again after retirement.

From growing up in Pittsburgh in a tight-knit Italian family, to a decades-long career serving at-risk youth and leading large-scale philanthropy, Nina’s story is rooted in service, relationships, and resilience. Now living in the mountains of North Georgia, she opens up about identity beyond work, making friends later in life, marriage that lasts decades, and learning how to slow down — without losing purpose.

This conversation is honest, humorous, and quietly profound — a reminder that reinvention doesn’t stop just because the résumé does.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

• Growing up Italian-American in Pittsburgh and leaving home to find independence
   
• Choosing people over marine biology — and discovering a calling in social services
   
• Meeting her husband Lex and marrying within months (45 years and counting)
   
• Working with juvenile justice programs and at-risk youth
   
• Leading the Pace Center for Girls and expanding its impact
   
• A 20+ year career in philanthropy and community foundations
   
• Growing an endowment from tens of millions to hundreds of millions
   
• Fundraising vs. friend-raising and donor relationships
   
• Retiring, relocating, and losing the identity tied to work
   
• The challenge of making friends later in life
   
• Caregiving, marriage, and compromise
   
• Finding joy in small moments — hiking, kayaking, travel, and baking pie crusts

MEMORABLE QUOTES

• “I think the hardest part of retirement is finding your people.”
   
• “If you ask for money, you get advice. If you ask for advice, you get money.”
   
• “Our job becomes who we are — and then one day, it’s not.”
   
• “You don’t want to get too busy in retirement. You’ve already worked your ass off.”
   
• “Marriage is compromise. You meet people where they are.”

Where to listen & watch:
YouTube: https://youtu.be/iLTOw1m-Bmg
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/whats-your-story/id1768048076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0aFWnedfyylxVs5vJrD8tY
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/3c4c493e-e2f2-4b4b-bfd3-52174caeaf7c/whats-your-story-with-jaime-stan

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