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After earning an associate degree in social sciences and admission to Phi Theta Kappa in 2015 at Southwestern Michigan College, Cassidy Purucker Bourdon seemed poised for a career in social work.

She transferred from this SMC to the other SMC, Saint Mary’s College, from which she graduated in 2017.

“A personal childhood encounter with a social worker” influenced her decision to pursue social work.

“ I had the chance to talk to her about my future and how college is an option. She made an impact on my personal life, giving me hope that I could achieve and go anywhere.

“Since meeting with her in a short period of time, the amount of care and interest she took into my well-being made everything shift. I knew then that this is something I wanted to do for those in similar situations. To give them hope that life can be changed, you can take charge of your life and provide a better outcome no matter the circumstances,” said Bourdon, who came to SMC from Brandywine High School in Niles.

After working as a Registered Behavior Technician (RBT) with MeBe, a Community Resource Coordinator through Boys Hope Girls Hope and a dog walker/sitter through Rover, Bourdon finds herself in the Bay Area of California as Team Lead and Senior Permit Coordinator at GoPermit, a small six-person  niche company in the sign industry.

It started as a sign permit expeditor and branched into construction permits including, but not limited to, interior and exterior build-outs, roofs, parking lots and fences.

Signing in in California

“I ended up in this industry due to my best friend from high school who worked in this field,” Bourdon said. “I started as an RBT during COVID and just going back-and-forth into people’s homes took up a lot of time. I really wanted something different due to some family issues back home that would allow me to travel but still work so I wasn’t doing a disservice to the children I was working with.

“She mentioned that they were hiring for someone to work remote. I knew about what she was doing for a while and it piqued my interest because I thought how is there a company that specializes in permitting specifically?

“I told her that I’ll apply because I’ve been very interested in trying to figure out what she does and would be open to considering this as an option for a career path. What we do here at GoPermit is a very niche kind of expertise.

“There are companies throughout the nation that do solely permitting, but most of them work with the national sign companies. So at GoPermit we deal with a lot of bureaucratic paperwork, so we have clients, national companies, come to us asking us. If this proposed sign for a commercial building is allowed specifically we look at the municipal code and cross reference that to the zone they’re located in to see if they’re allowed to have what they’re wanting to propose so, for instance, if you look at Foot Locker, Extra Space Storage or Ross, they have these big signs indicating that this is the store’s name, so we help these companies and businesses get that signage on front of their building to help identify.

“So we fill out all the paperwork, do the research on what’s allowed, who needs to sign applications, what documents are needed for the submittal and we help see that from start to finish,” Bourdon said. “We get everything together, create the package submitted to the city and work with the city to address any comments along the way so our clients can have the proposed sign that they want.

“I deal mainly with the sign permitting as well as the specialized permits for warrants in the City of Miami currently,” she said. “At first, when I began working with this company, I had no idea what I was doing. But over the years, you learn the ins and outs of permitting and then it just comes to you naturally as you continuously do it. I never thought that I’d be so passionate about learning and researching several different codes and requirements for each municipality.

Social work skills still applicable

“The skills I have that transferred over from the community resource coordinator role and my degree as a social worker, I feel like I am able to communicate and provide clarification to the clients, as well as talk them down if something is getting overly addressed or that’s super concerning and they need answers immediately,” she said. “You have to be very patient and flexible and willing to do anything and everything you can to provide the best possible outcome for your client, and that’s what I do here at GoPermit.”

Bourdon moved to California in the summer of 2017 for a year of service as community resource coordinator of Boys Hope Girls Hope.

“I located this organization through my social work professor,” Bourdon said. “I knew working with children after school and finding them a mentor to help them pursue their dreams would be meaningful.”

At GoPermit, “My role is to manage our two permit coordinators by holding weekly all-hands team status meetings and conducting one-on-one meetings with team members to provide feedback and helping unblock permit bottlenecks. I enacted training guides and co-designed internal company systems to promote smooth and structured process-flow for the permitting lifecycle. I plan and execute quarterly employee appreciation events.”

No wildfires in Sunnyvale

She and Buchanan live in the Bay Area, specifically Sunnyvale, so “the wild fires did not affect us here. (Los Angeles) is about six hours south of us. I do not miss snow, but really miss fall. I’m able to get my snow fix during the winter by heading to Tahoe for a few snowboarding trips. I do travel a couple of times a year back to Michigan, mainly around Christmas to spend that with my family and my husband’s family.”

A unique proposal

Cassidy’s husband of seven years in September programmed an app to propose marriage.

“It was super sweet,” she said. “Somehow he managed to hide the app on my phone without me noticing. I answered a few prompts and at the end there was a sweet and meaningful message. I look up crying as he’s starting to get down on one knee.”

They share their home with three “fur babies. We have a 6-year-old mini-doodle named Finn, an orange 10-year-old tabby named Daisy and recently added a 3-month-old rescue named Polar.”

Away from work, she volunteers with a local rescue, Doggie Protective Services (DPS).

“I’m very passionate about animals and do everything I can whether that’s driving a few

 hours to pull dogs from shelters, helping out with adoption events and all the in-between for intake to make sure the dogs are all set and ready for their fosters.

“Besides that, we go hiking, play tennis, love wine tasting at a local winery and during winter we plan a few trips to snowboard.”

Setting myself up for success at SMC

“Being an RA in White Hall, working on the decorations or doing my best to plan fun hall event for the cohorts” are fond memories. “I enjoyed the community and how easy it was to make friends. I also LOVED working in the office alongside Kathy, Sara and Brenda. The impact we made and the genuine support I received was amazing. I still adore them to this day. I could count on their help navigating what classes would suit best.”

“My decision to attend SMC was very easy for me,” Bourdon said. “I wanted to stay local and start off where I wasn’t as much in debt and touring and talking to the admissions counselor there really helped solidify my decision to wait a couple of years and then transfer to a bigger university.

“I worked closely with the advisor on my game plan to start out on what classes I should take in order to transfer to the other SMC that was also very close to where I live.

“A lot of people when they first start out think they need to go to big-name schools, but you don’t have to. You can get a really good education at a local community college which I did for two years, got my associate degree and then transferred to get my bachelor’s degree in social work. I set myself up for success by attending SMC and then transferring since doing that I am completely paid off all of my debts.”