Gina Cozzarelli had a good life in Ecuador where she and her husband, Wilson, were both practicing dentists. With their daughter, Paola, they had a comfortable life that seemed full of possibilities. But only ten years into their marriage, tragedy struck. After a long and expensive battle with brain cancer, Wilson passed away, and Gina was left to make some hard decisions.

“It was my sister who said I shouldn’t stay in Ecuador,” Gina recalls. “She knew that staying there was going to be too hard for me, and she invited me to join her in Indiana. Knowing it would be a good opportunity for my daughter, I said yes.”

When she first arrived, Gina had hopes of starting up a new practice in pediatric dentistry, like the one she’d run for fifteen years in Ecuador. Unfortunately, after speaking to a number of U.S.-based dentists, it became clear that to do so she’d have to start all over again from zero.

Since going back to school wasn’t an option, Gina decided to change careers; but that plan was also daunting. “You can’t believe how anxious I was,” she says. “I didn’t have any recommendations or referrals because I’d never worked here. I was unfamiliar with everything, and I needed to be able to support my daughter by myself.” Happily, Gina’s sister introduced her to Tom Morales, who was at that time just launching his new business.

“When I started at Morales Group, there were only three desks,” Gina says of the early days at the company. “We didn’t have titles; we just did whatever needed to be done. It’s grown a lot since then, and now I’m in customer service managing a roster of fifteen client accounts.”

Gina has been with Morales Group since the beginning, and she has enjoyed every single day she has spent there, recruiting and interviewing candidates and helping people like her—people who might be starting from zero—to find that all-important first job. “You can never understand how God does things. I’m not a dentist right now, but I feel so good. I feel like this is where I need to be.”

Before Waleska Figueroa came to the United States, she had spent twenty years working as a civil engineer in Honduras. She had followed in her father’s footsteps—he had also been a civil engineer—and both he and her mother, a pharmacist, had supported their daughter in her pursuit of her career.

While she was growing up, Waleska and her parents often traveled to California to visit family. But, it wasn’t until she started her own family that Waleska decided to move to the U.S. permanently. “A baby changes you,” Waleska says. “I didn’t want him to grow up without family, so I moved first to California and then to live with my sister and her children in Indiana. I wanted to give my son more opportunities.”

Not wanting to wait until her civil engineering degree was accepted in the U.S., Waleska decided to make a career change; and that was when her brother-in-law referred her to Morales Group. She started out working on some temp assignments at clients, and after a few months became as administrative assistant within the company. Soon, she was promoted to recruiter, and today she is a customer service representative.

“I’m glad I had the opportunity to work on the client side and see the process from the candidates side,” Waleska says. “On the client side, it’s not unlike being an engineer. I visit a client’s work place to learn more about what they’re doing so I can fully understand the situation and make a plan. I’m always learning more; that’s my goal.”

While Waleska enjoys working with people from so many different cultures, she acknowledges that it has its challenges, including language differences. However, for Waleska, these challenges only make the ultimate outcome that much sweeter. “We place such a variety of candidates, and often they’ve been struggling to find a job because they just haven’t had the opportunity to show how good they are,” she says. “I love that here at Morales Group, we work hard to find the right opportunity for every person who walks through our doors. I get excited just thinking about the possibilities and the potential.”

Leaving Mexico was one of the hardest things Leticia and her family would endure. They followed her husband’s career to Indianapolis, leaving family, friends, culture, and Leticia’s job as a quality engineer behind. “There weren’t even Hispanic radio stations or television channels when we first arrived,” Leticia remembers. “And I was having headaches all the time because it was difficult for me to understand the language or communicate. It was really hard.”

After adding a baby boy to the family, Leticia took some time away from her job at J.C. Penny and had a chance to volunteer at her daughter’s school as a classroom translator. Her friendly nature and ability led to a position as an interpreter in the Pike School System, and later to the position of Office Manager at Pike High School, a position she held for seven years.

A few years later, after taking some time off to be home with her family, Leticia began looking for a job to which she could apply her years of experience as a quality engineer. Her efforts led to a position a team lead for a project at Morales Group. Leticia made the most of the opportunity and was quickly promoted to supervisor, and—within a year—to accounts coordinator. “Looking back, I can’t help but smile,” she says. “It was a difficult journey, but everything led to this.”

At Morales Group, Leticia puts her commitment to others and her attention to detail into everything she does. “People say I’m picky because I point it out when even one number isn’t matching,” she says. “But, that number represents a person, and I care about each and every person we work with. That’s something I love about Morales Group—they take care of all different kinds of people and they have given me an opportunity to grow as a professional.”

Today, Leticia considers her coworkers at Morales Group her family. “It’s a completely different kind of company,” she explains. “It was so hard to leave Mexico and everything I knew there, but I love the diversity I’ve found here at Morales Group.”

As for the journey, Leticia sums it up beautifully, “When you are passing through challenging situations, you can’t really see the whole picture. It’s hard, but God is always taking care of you. The way my family’s story turned out is a perfect example.”