Head of School's Message: February 24

At the start of the school year in August, Chandler’s Director of Finance Lynette Heydorff, announced that this would be her last school year at Chandler as a full-time employee. In June, she will be retiring from her full-time position after 35 years of service to Chandler. Lynette’s work ethic, meticulous attention to detail and unimpeachable integrity epitomize Chandler’s mission. She is known throughout the San Gabriel Valley as the Dean of Independent School Business Managers dispensing advice and offering counsel to her counterparts in other schools. As the local economy has waxed and waned during her tenure, Lynette has marshaled Chandler’s resources, resulting in positive fund balances during each of her thirty-five years at the helm of the business office. That is a remarkable accomplishment and Lynette’s lasting legacy.

During the 2020-2021 school year, Lynette will remain on staff in the business office for two days a week to assist the new Director of Finance, announced below, throughout the transition.

 

In her retirement letter, Lynette wrote, “When I was hired as Chandler’s Business Manager in June 1985 by Headmaster Jeff Stephens, I shared a hallway office with Development Director Joyce Greif. We had no other employees working in our departments. My husband, Stephen, and I had our daughter Farrell who was three years old, and I felt I won the lottery. The work-life balance this job afforded me was everything to me as a mother. Two years later, Farrell was attending Chandler, and two years after that, we had our second daughter, Gillian. Both girls graduated from Chandler.

They are happy, successful women; much of their happiness and success can be attributed to the education they received from Chandler teachers.”

 

“Of the many highlights of my career at Chandler, my favorite has been collaborating with you and the Board of Trustees as we navigated Chandler’s financial growth. I have been blessed to witness many changes, from old PC’s and Dot matrix printers to a one-to-one laptop program with plenty of HP printers, the student body has grown, old buildings renovated, and new buildings opened. Chandler is poised for continued growth in service of the school’s mission to provide each student with the highest quality and most academically challenging education in a nurturing, balanced and diverse environment.”

 

We will be honoring Lynette with appropriate Chandler fanfare before the end of the school year.

 

I am pleased to announce that following a national search that began last October and concluded earlier this month, Natalie Morales has been hired as Chandler’s new Director of Finance. Natalie’s eight years of school business manager experience include three years as Business/Finance Manager at St. Francis de Sales School in Houston, TX and three years as Chief Finance and Operations Officer at Rolling Hills Preparatory School in San Pedro.

 

Chandler administrators and board members were impressed with Natalie’s energy, intellect and character. One Chandler Trustee wrote, “Natalie came across as poised, smart, thoughtful and collaborative. I felt she was easily able to build rapport and I liked her open style. She was the only candidate to initiate the discussion around the benefits of splitting the finance and accounting (day-to-day) responsibilities for this role, which could allow this role to focus more on strategy. I liked that she has had exposure to operations. I felt that she would work well with Chandler board members, faculty and staff.”

 

A native of San Antonio, TX, Natalie earned her Bachelor of Business Administration from Texas A & M University and her MBA in Finance and Accounting from American InterContinental University in Houston.

 

Natalie’s hometown is San Antonio, TX. She lives in Long Beach with her husband, Lenny. Natalie enjoys the outdoors, staying healthy, watching a good show, traveling, hiking with her spaniel mix dog or hanging out with friends. Natalie will start her new position on July 1.