Posted 11:23 pm Sunday, November 20, 2011
PATH Executive Director’s Focus Is Serving Tyler Community
Christina Fulsom, executive director of Tyler's People Attempting To Help agency, spent most of her childhood in Spain, and moving to the Texas Hill Country in her teen years came with a culture shock.
Her father served in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed just outside Madrid. She grew up with four siblings, one of whom was a special-needs child. Her mother was a homemaker.
The family lived in Spain until moving in 1979 to Kerrville when Ms. Fulsom was 15.
"It was an absolute shock to go from Madrid to Kerrville, Texas," she said. "Madrid is such an old-cultured city.
"We were moving to a small town, and because I spoke Spanish, people assumed I was from Mexico. Mexican-Americans in Kerrville then were not treated that well. I learned a lot about prejudice."
Ms. Fulsom got into painting and drawing in high school. She also was involved in Health Occupations Students of America and eventually became state vice president.
She graduated with a class of 200 seniors from Tivy High School in 1982 and went on to study pre-med at Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches.
"Since I was a child, I had always wanted to be a physician," she said. "My little brother, Joey, was in and out of hospitals all the time. I wanted to take care of him."
She left SFA after two years and became a court interpreter in Kerrville and then San Antonio.
"I was doing mainly district court cases," Ms. Fulsom said. "Many of them were murder cases, which was interesting. I learned a lot in that process."
She worked as a court interpreter off and on for about six years before returning to SFA, where she earned a degree in Spanish literature in 1994.
She and her husband, who was going to med school, moved to San Antonio, where she once again worked as a court interpreter. After he finished school, they moved to Charlottesville, Va., where she went to work as editorial director for LexisNexis, a legal publisher.
"While I was there, I did a lot of volunteer work," Ms. Fulsom said. "I left the for-profit world to go work in nonprofit."
That first foray into a nonprofit career was with the Monticello Area Community Action Agency, a social services organization.
The family moved to the Tyler area in 2004.
"I was actually not planning on working," she said. "I wanted to do volunteer work. I met several people and several organizations. Next thing I knew, I was being recruited to be executive director of PATH. I've been here for eight years."
People Attempting To Help, launched as a grassroots organization in 1985, is a faith-based social services agency focused on Smith County poverty, according to the agency's website. PATH addresses basic needs and helps families become self-sufficient.
As executive director, Ms. Fulsom runs the entire agency, handles community relations, makes sure that PATH has proper resources and designs and implements programs.
She said the biggest challenge is "identifying community needs and not always having the ability to meet those needs."
"That's the most difficult thing for me, knowing there are needs that are not being met," she said, adding that the favorite part of her work is interacting with clients.
Ms. Fulsom, 47, met her husband, Donald, at SFA, where he was a biochemistry professor before entering medical school. Their first date was lunch at an off-campus Greek restaurant.
The couple has one grown child, Ryan, 24, and a younger child, Drew, 16, a Whitehouse High School junior.
Ms. Fulsom said much of her time is dedicated to PATH. During her free time, she enjoys traveling, swimming and watching movies with her family.
Most subjects for this column come from business cards randomly pulled from a briefcase. Send cards to Managing Editor Brian Pearson, 410 W. Erwin St., Tyler, Texas, 75702.
