Nancy Gardner — businesswoman, civic leader and jack-of-all-trades — has been a force to be reckoned with in La Jolla for almost three decades. Having first moved to La Jolla in 1984, she returned seven years ago after a stint in Carmel Valley and University City. Since she’s been back, however, she has wasted no time getting her feet wet in community issues, serving on the board of directors of the La Jolla Rotary and as a La Jolla Town Council trustee. Gardner has an eclectic business background. With a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in education from Michigan State University, she has taught virtually every age level, from elementary to college-age students, has been a recurring guest on the Rick Amato Show on KCBQ, and worked as a sales training manager for Xerox Corporation before coming to California. She eventually was recruited into lending, and started her own company, California Mortgage Consultants for residential real estate. Gardner is also not one to sit still. She is a commissioner for the San Diego Police Historical Association, a Friend of the Badge participant and a graduate of the FBI Citizens’ Academy. La Jolla Village News: What is your approach to business, since you’ve been involved in real estate? Nancy Gardner: For me, because I have such a strong sales background, I could easily see I could apply my professional principles of sales — which, for me, is what’s best for the customer. You have to think about how you can impact the customer’s life and enhance their life’s goals financially. If you can find a product that fits into their goals to enhance their life, that’s the kind of service I feel people should get. You don’t just talk to a client about buying a house, you talk about their short-, mid- and long-term goals. By taking the time to understand those goals, you can enhance their economic picture. That’s very rewarding for me. I stay in the business because I like the people so much. LJVN: What are some of the challenges you’ve experienced as a woman in business? NG: When I was coming up through the ranks, especially at Xerox and in commercial real estate, we [women] were outnumbered. At Xerox, I was the only female in management. At that time, it wasn’t based on merit, it was based on merit and cronyism, I suspect. I think now life is more based on merit because you have to work so hard to survive as it is. When I was a single mom and a businesswoman, it was in the days when we were told we could have it all, but we were not told we had to do it all. Now I think families share jobs, and men and women share the responsibility of raising children. At least I hope that’s the way it’s working, and I suspect it is. Men and women are equally smart and should be equally yoked in getting business taken care of, and by business I mean family business, personal business and the business of the community. LJVN: Why is it important for women to get involved in business and community matters? NG: If you look at the history of the world, men were the figures that were talked about more, but they needed to have a woman beside them. At some point in the process, it got lost — the honor and sharing of roles got lost. I think we are at the precipice to have the opportunity of pulling back from that loss and doing the things that the family, community, nation and, ultimately, the world needs. Things have changed a lot. Though I still can’t believe we haven’t had a woman president yet. I can’t believe India had a female president before us! I’m very surprised that the U.S., being so progressive, is so behind there. I think that as class and race have gone by the wayside, so has gender in terms of making decisions on who you want to be a leader. It should all be on merit. The biggest thing is you need to pick people who play well with others. I don’t think anyone is a great leader if they are a great ego. LJVN: You’ve been very involved in the community and in different organizations like the FBI Citizens’ Academy. How do you find these opportunities? NG: They find me! I became a police commissioner last September, where I help raise funds for things that the police need that the city budget can’t support. It’s important to raise awareness in the community of the things the officers do. I regularly go on ride-alongs, which are very fun. One thing that strikes me is how good the officers are with citizens, no matter how ridiculous the call may be. They’re always professional, and they always want to do the right thing. The FBI Citizens’ Academy has been one of the most fun extracurricular activities I’ve ever done. The idea is to get citizens involved in and raise awareness about what the FBI does. You have to be asked to take the course. For graduation, we went to the FBI/sheriff shared facility at the border and learned to shoot a gun. My favorite gun is a Tommy gun, a .45-caliber. It looks exactly like the gun Al Capone used to use! It was a great experience. All these experiences give me an outlet for how to help. We have so many years on this planet, and that’s it. You can spend it on yourself, or spend it on others or some kind of combination thereof. What you do with them, the extent to which you give back, has this synergistic effect of making us all better. Those are the kind of people I like to spend time with. LJVN: What do you like about living in La Jolla? NG: I love the small-town feel, that it’s a village by the ocean within a larger community. As a businessperson, it’s more expensive to live and to work, but there’s many advantages of living in this wonderful environment. People here have varied experiences and many come from different places. But we should have more places right in our community for dancing for adults! LJVN: Do you have a motto you live by? NG: I’ve had several. One in particular is, “He who laughs, lasts.” That is within the context of a belief in God. He really is in charge of what goes on, and it’s up to us to — instead of stressing out about everything — to learn to live as though we are the example of Him, that His character is within us and we are the example of that for others. If everyone lived like that, we’d have none of the issues we have. But people don’t take the responsibility to put that character within them and to be the calm, helpful leader or participant of society they need to be.