Brandie Yoder Found Her Dream Job — And It's Changing Lives in the Process

She Didn't Plan to Be CEO — But She Was Made for It

Brandie will tell you, without hesitation, that she is living her dream. Not the polished, Instagram-filtered version of a dream — but the kind that comes with hard conversations, sleepless nights, navigating trauma, and a staff of people who love so deeply it disarms fear in the people they serve. That kind of dream.

Brandie is the CEO of RETA, a faith-based nonprofit serving vulnerable families and women in her community. But her path to that role winds through hospital ICU floors, hospice care, boardrooms, and her own living room — where she and her husband Jon are raising four children, including foster youth whose lives have been shaped by instability, loss, and need.

"I never had a goal to be a CEO in a nonprofit," she admits. "But I saw people seeing something in me, and the more they pulled that out, I thought — I kind of like this."

The Winding Road That Led Her Here

Brandie began her career as a bedside nurse, spending seven years in the ICU and then hospice care before transitioning to hospital case management. That shift opened her eyes to the full picture — not just the clinical diagnosis, but the social fractures that put people in crisis in the first place. She was promoted to manager, then director, eventually overseeing six departments at Goshen Health.

She loved it. She was good at it. And then life asked something more of her.

When she and her husband both held director-level positions and decided to begin fostering children, the margins in their life got thin. A sales opportunity came their husband's way — one he didn't want, but thought might be a better fit for Brandie. She stepped into it, calling it "the right fit for our family for a season." But her hunger for leadership never went away. It simply waited.

When she entered the nonprofit world, something clicked into place that she hadn't fully experienced before: personal and professional alignment. And when she arrived at RETA, with its unapologetically faith-centered mission, it clicked even deeper.

"Being able to say out loud, 'This is why we do what we do' — I finally felt like I found my dream job."

Proximity Changes Everything

One of the most powerful convictions shaping Brandie's leadership is the principle of proximity to the need. She learned it through scripture, deepened it through foster parenting, and now builds it into the DNA of RETA's culture.

"For me to effectively lead an organization that desires to serve people, I have to have proximity," she says. "Right now, a lot of that is coming from our home — a teen mom and her one year old baby we're navigating life with." But it doesn't stop there. Every staff member at RETA is expected to teach a class, mentor a client, or maintain some direct connection to the work. Not as a box to check, but as a heartbeat to protect.

The results are measurable — and deeply human. RETA has grown 200% in client base over the last two and a half years, with staff growing roughly 50%. They operate with approximately 100 volunteers each week, in addition to 70 to 75 active one-on-one mentors. That kind of growth doesn't happen because of good marketing. It happens because people walk through the doors and feel something different.

Brandie lights up when she talks about it. She recently came across research on oxytocin and how eye contact, genuine warmth, and safe relationships actually disarm the amygdala — the brain's fear center — allowing people to think clearly and process what's being offered to them.

"We've created a space where people can literally disarm that fear. It's not 'I'm going to parenting class because I was told to.' That felt safety is so important."

She sees it play out again and again: trauma causes people to get stuck. But when they feel safe in relationship, they start to move forward. "Your staff can't create that," she adds, "unless they feel safe first."

Being a Good Student of Yourself

Brandie is the kind of leader who geeks out over the Enneagram, DISC assessments, and any tool that helps her understand herself and her team better. She's an Enneagram 1 — and she owns it with a laugh, acknowledging that high expectations of herself are something she has to actively keep in check.

"The more I know about myself, the better leader I am and the better team we become," she explains. "Some people don't like those assessments because they think people use them as excuses. I see them as an opportunity to grow and give common language."

That self-awareness has helped her navigate the transition from operator to visionary — one of the most difficult shifts any leader faces. Early in her career, she was in the details, managing departments, doing the hands-on work. Now her job is to set a clear direction, give people the freedom to find their own path to get there, and resist the urge to micromanage the route.

"There are probably 50 ways to get somewhere, and my team won't always choose the one I thought of," she says with a smile. "As long as we're getting there in the timeline we agreed on, I'm learning to let it go."

It's a posture she learned from the mentors who shaped her — servant leaders who weren't about being out front, but about clearing paths for others to succeed. That's the culture she's building at RETA, and it's the standard she refuses to compromise on when hiring.

"Right people, right seat — there is no compromising that. Because the culture for our staff and our clients is critical. Once you've lived in that space, you don't want to give it up."

Faith That Doesn't Stay Quiet

Brandie grew up in a Christian home, and she's quick to say her faith has always shaped who she is — even in roles where it wasn't spoken aloud. It drove her into healthcare, into advocacy, into a desire to be a voice for those who couldn't speak up for themselves.

But at RETA, she doesn't have to keep it quiet. And that changes everything.

"Every member of our team sees people through a lens of truly wanting to be the hands and feet of Jesus," she says. "There's no ego. It's not 'I'm up here, you're down there.' We are literally sitting across from people in a way that makes them feel worthy and seen."

That culture extends beyond RETA's walls. Brandie leads a monthly cohort of resource navigators from 25 different organizations across the community — bringing together people from hospitals, nonprofits, and social services to share skills, process challenges, and remind each other they aren't alone. Survey results show that participants' sense of burnout is decreasing — simply because they have community.

At home, she and Jon are doing some of the most countercultural work of all: fostering children and raising them alongside their biological kids. "When we said yes to fostering, our kids didn't really have a choice — we dragged them along," she laughs. "But they still show up in the most incredible ways."

The impact on her own children is something she can't fully quantify — and doesn't need to. They are growing up with proximity to people whose lives look very different from theirs. Their hearts are being softened, shaped, and stretched in ways no textbook could teach.

Humble Ambition

At 41, leading a rapidly growing nonprofit, raising four children, mentoring community leaders, and sitting on multiple systems-level steering teams, Brandie could easily be described as extraordinary. But she'd push back on that.

She recently led her team through a values refresh at RETA, and one phrase she added had stayed with her for years after reading it in a magazine: humble ambition. The idea that a leader's two most sought-after traits are humility and ambition — held together, not traded off against each other.

It's a tension she lives out daily. She makes hard decisions and doesn't always get them right. She replays conversations more times than she'd like. She brings too many new ideas to her team too fast sometimes, and has to pace herself so she doesn't burn them out.

But she is fully, unambiguously herself — a nurse who became a director who became a CEO, a woman of faith who found a place where her beliefs and her vocation speak the same language, a foster mom who brings proximity home with her every evening and wouldn't trade it for a tidier life.

"I never imagined, at 41, being in this role. But I love the connections, I love the work, I love the team. I've never loved a job like this."

That's what it looks like when calling and competence converge — when the skills you've spent a lifetime developing finally find a mission worthy of them. Brandie didn't plan to be a CEO. But RETA needed exactly who she is. And she showed up.