Norma Calvert graduated from Martinsville High School in 1969 with a sensible plan.

She attended Eastern Illinois University, earned a degree in Business Education with a minor in accounting, and expected she would become a teacher. In those years, she said, teaching and nursing were generally understood to be the primary professional paths available to young women.

Life had something else in mind.

What followed was a career that carried her from Clark County to Findlay, Ohio; Houston, Anchorage, Moscow, Jakarta, Abu Dhabi, Amsterdam, and Cairo and eventually brought her home.

She was raised, she says, in one of the best eras to grow up in America. Bicycles in neighborhoods. Church at the center of social life. Family nearby. "We didn't have a lot, but we had everything," she said. "We didn't know we didn't have a lot."

After college, the teaching jobs she expected weren't there as the market was saturated. Rather than waiting, she took an accounting position with a local independent oil and gas company. She loved it. The numbers connected to real operations, real decisions, real people. The industry itself fascinated her.

When the opportunity came to apply for a position at Marathon Oil,which had a regional presence connected to Martinsville. She applied, expecting to stay close to home. The head of HR in Marathon's pipeline group offered her a start in Findlay, Ohio, instead, where she had an aunt and uncle who'd worked for Marathon for years.

She said yes.

"I followed that open door," she said. "I think that's the one thing I learned along the way."

Over the next decades, the doors kept opening. From Findlay, she moved to Houston as manager of joint venture auditing, a role that sent her to Indonesia, Abu Dhabi, Norway, the Netherlands, Egypt, and Russia on business development work. From Houston, she moved to Anchorage as general manager of finance and administration for Marathon's regional office in Alaska.

It was in Alaska that she discovered what would become her favorite chapter.

With the Houston-based government affairs team stretched thin making the long trip north, she started absorbing some of that work herself, sitting in on legislative meetings, learning the political terrain. She discovered she loved it.

When a reorganization brought the work back to Houston, and her role was transitioning, she went to her vice president and told him directly what she wanted: a move into government affairs.

His response surprised her.

"You're kidding me," he said. "We've been talking about that, but we didn't want you to feel like we were just putting you someplace."

The lesson she took from that moment: tell people what you want. "You have to share with people what your interests are," she said. "You can't assume people know."

She became a lobbyist, representing Marathon in New Mexico, Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Texas, and Louisiana. "Probably the most favorite job I had in my entire career was lobbying," she said — though she noted it would be harder in today's political climate.

People often misunderstand what lobbying actually involves. "It's all about relationship building and educating," she said. The work ran on both sides of the aisle, built on honesty, consistency, and the willingness to help legislators understand how decisions affected real industries and real communities. The goal was never to overpower. "You weren't going to convince everybody. You just wanted to be able to tell your story."

She was proud of Marathon's approach. "Honesty and integrity were the most important rules for us. I was always very proud of Marathon for that."

She eventually became general manager of government affairs before retiring from Marathon in 2004, thirty-plus years after that first accounting position opened the door.

She tried IBM briefly. "Way too big for me," she said. "I didn't enjoy it." So she retired.

Then she came back to Martinsville.

She serves on local boards and remains active in her church. The community's investment in her,  the teachers who cared, the foundation of faith, the work ethic the region is known for now comes back around through her.

"I felt like I spent my years working, and it was time to give back," she said.

She doesn't tell this story to impress anyone. She says so plainly. What she wants young people to hear is simpler: opportunities present themselves. Some of them look different than what you expected. Some lead somewhere you couldn't have imagined from where you're standing.

"You just have to have the self-confidence to pursue things," she said. "And follow the open doors."