Burbank Senior Associate Director of Admissions Honored with Award
Debi Hrboka had been climbing the corporate ladder as a division manager and account executive with a national sales company for 12 years when a plane crash in 1985 forced her to re-evaluate her life.
Her focus shifted to the University of La Verne, where she now serves as Senior Associate Director of Admissions at La Verne’s San Fernando Valley Campus. And despite that shift from her previous life, Hrboka’s impact on the corporate world remains so widespread, she was awarded for it during a ceremony in November.
The Los Angeles Women Police Officers and Associates (LAWPOA) honored Hrboka on Nov. 18 with the Community Service Award at its 8th Annual Leadership Awards/Scholarships Breakfast for her work in corporate education. The award, she said, came as a surprise.
“I was totally blindsided,” she said. Hrboka was the only award recipient who was not part of law enforcement.
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, University of La Verne President Devorah Lieberman, Hrboka’s co-workers and family members also attended.
Hrboka’s La Verne story began shortly after the plane crash near Santa Paula. Hrboka’s father, who was the pilot, encountered a downdraft in some canyons, causing the crash. Hrboka and her father survived due to skillful maneuvering, but had to be flown to hospital because of injuries. The rescue team who came to the scene called them lucky to be alive, because a crash several years earlier in the same area resulted in the passengers and pilot burning to death.
“It took me a while to understand that the plane crash was a blessing in disguise because it allowed me to give up a successful career with no regrets,” she said. “I experienced a huge paradigm shift in priorities.”
She decided to scale back her professional life and focus on family. Tuition breaks for her daughter’s college education lured Hrboka to La Verne. She took on entry-level part time positions for 14 years. But with her experience in the corporate world, her responsibilities would eventually expand.
Hrboka has now worked for the University of La Verne almost 20 years, and took the position of Associate Director of Admissions in Burbank in 2009 after her children had grown.
Her impact in the last six years has been far-reaching, establishing more than 26 on-site cohort locations in the Los Angeles region, including Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Fire Department, Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Los Angeles city and county, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and most recently AT&T. On-site cohorts are corporate locations where employees can pursue a La Verne degree close to where they work.
Nelly Kazman, Senior Executive Director of the San Fernando Valley Regional Campus, said she has not seen anyone capable of navigating large bureaucracies to forge educational partnerships as effortlessly as Hrboka. She described Hrboka as a visionary who is able to connect with people from all walks of life, giving them encouragement and hope to achieve success.
“Debi’s previous years of corporate experience and training enhanced her successful recruiting efforts,” Kazman said. “She is committed to what she does and has been the major force in making the San Fernando Valley Campus La Verne’s largest regional campus.”
Fred Chyr, Associate Vice President of Strategic Enrollment Management and Communications, called Hrboka’s work instrumental in the Burbank campus seeing the highest enrollment numbers it has seen in years.
“Through sheer persistence, a passion for her work and her students, and an extraordinary work ethic which often sees her putting in over 70 hours of work a week, Debi and a dedicated team of hard-working colleagues at the Burbank campus consistently achieve a high level of new student registration every year. The Burbank campus is now the standard for enrollment excellence.”
Hrboka says she has a real passion for creating educational opportunities for working adults because she understands the difficulty of pursing a degree while supporting a family. At 19, she took legal custody of her brother. Having added responsibilities made it more difficult to go to college. Accelerated degree programs and night classes designed for working adults located close to where she worked would have eased her burden, she said. Despite the challenges, Hrboka earned a bachelor’s degree in organizational management and a Master of Science in Leadership and Management from the University of La Verne.
In addition to recruiting students, she builds relationships with organizations, developing corporate education partnerships. She assists organizations in creating or enhancing their employees’ tuition benefits by offering tuition discount programs. Many of the organizations become on-site cohort locations.
Hrboka has been able to create an infrastructure of corporate program locations throughout the Los Angeles area by getting many large organizations to cooperate with each other and allow each other’s employees to attend all program locations. This created more location and program choices for everyone and enabled her to get them the largest tuition discount.
“I’ve created kind of a co-op of program sites for the Los Angeles area,” Hrboka said.
This increase in educational opportunities within the greater Los Angeles area has benefitted the Los Angeles Community and earned her the Community Service Award.
“If you can make quality degree programs accessible, doable and affordable, the majority of adult students still prefer being with other humans in a classroom setting,” Hrboka said. “We kind of bring the mountain to Muhammad, she said.
La Verne faculty and advisors go on-site for the programs, offering three-year degree programs in business administration, organizational management, Master of Science in Leadership and Management and Master of Business Administration. Tuition discounts are offered in exchange for use of the organization’s facility.
Staff and faculty at La Verne’s Burbank campus – who Hrboka calls the best team she has ever worked with – make it all possible.
“It’s very rewarding to be able to create educational opportunities for people to be able to go to school while being able to work and support their family and I always say you have to believe to achieve,” she said. “I believe in what we do with my all my heart and soul.”
