by Chris Fuller

Photos by Lisa Reese Photography

 

 

Maria Hunnicutt is a Rutherford Woman who is always on the go. While her job as Manager of Broad River Water Authority is enough to keep anyone very busy, Maria has several other demands on her time. She and her husband Todd operate a grading company, Blue Ridge Excavating, which they launched in 2008, and she is a very active volunteer with several local non-profit organizations. Her toddler, Cade, is 100% boy and keeps Maria on her toes. Although she leads a very active life, Maria’s priorities are very clear, as they were brought starkly into focus upon being diagnosed with cancer in 2004.

 

Like many who were grew up elsewhere, Maria says she got to Rutherford County as fast as she could. She was born and raised in Asheville, and attended North Carolina State University with the goal of becoming an engineer. She graduated in 1991 with a degree in textile engineering, but with changes in the textile industry, Maria decided to continue her engineering education with a shift into biomedical plastics, and earned a Master of Science degree. Her first job with Johnson & Johnson sent her to Cornelia, GA, which proved fateful when she met future husband.

 

After dating long-distance for a while, Maria and Todd became engaged in 2000, and she moved to Rutherford County. Married in 2001, Maria continued in the plastics industry with United Southern Industries, and then moved into civil engineering with Odom Engineering. Her job with Odom gave her the opportunity to work with many of the firm’s clients, including Broad River Water Authority. “When Harlow Brown, the previous manager, retired, he asked me if I’d be interested in becoming the new manager, which is how the door opened for me to join Broad River Water Authority,” Maria said. She celebrated her fifth anniversary as BRWA’s Manager in June.

 

While she didn’t grow up thinking she wanted to manage a water authority, Maria feels that she is exactly where she needs to be. “Often, the path that we’re led down is better than the one we would have chosen,” she says. “I could not have chosen to be in this place; that was obviously God’s hand working to put me where I was supposed to be, and I am convinced that I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

 

There’s no such thing as a “typical” day on the job for Maria. Working with the public and responding to customer concerns, ensuring that the BRWA facilities are operating efficiently, managing budgets and grants, and staying in frequent contact with officials from local, county, and state governments are all everyday occurrences. The job changed Maria from being a planned, orderly list-maker to someone who can go with the flow. “Ever since I was 14, I used a Day Planner,” she says. “I am a big list maker, and after about a year, I quit making lists because nothing ever got crossed off. I’ve changed how I work because every day is very fluid, and I have to respond to changing priorities.”

 

Although her work is far from routine, a common thread runs through everything Maria does. “Even back in high school, I always said I wanted to do something that made a difference,” she says. “Water is critical to people. Not only is it a necessity for life, but it plays a key role in economic development and in the future of the county. Also, we have 18 employees here, and to make sure that their families are provided for, and their jobs are kept safe is very important. What we do here makes a difference, and personally, it’s been a very good fit.”

 

While providing a valuable service to the community is her day job, Maria also spends a lot of time volunteering in service to others in Rutherford County. She has been very active with Forest City Kiwanis for several years, and became the club’s first female President. She has also contributed time and effort to March of Dimes, Rutherford Housing Partnership, Hospice, and Leadership Rutherford, and was recently named Chairman of the Foothills Connect Board of Directors. “Volunteering is very important to me,” she said. “It’s something that has carried over from my childhood.”

 

One volunteer effort in particular will take up more of her time this year, as Maria has signed on as co-chair of this year’s Relay for Life campaign. “I’m a cancer survivor. Both my grandfathers, my mother, and my mother-in-law have all had cancer, so being involved with Relay for Life has always been a personal, passionate thing.” Maria will lead this year’s effort along with former County Manager John Condrey, and planning is already in progress. “I’ve volunteered with Relay for Life in previous years and served on the planning committee, but this year when I asked ‘What can I do?’, John asked me to step into the co-chair role with him. You never ‘have the time’ for something like this, but you just make the time.”

 

Making time for personal fitness had always been a high priority for Maria, who taught 6:00 AM classes at Lifestyles Wellness and Spa for several years. A cancer diagnosis was the last thing she ever expected.

 

“While I was teaching at Lifestyles, I spent a weekend at a training session,” Maria said. “Afterward, I was incredibly sore in my arms and chest, and then I felt something. I saw my doctor, we waited to see if it would go away, and it didn’t.” Several tests didn’t find anything, but a visit to Duke Medical Center determined that Maria was suffering from thyroid cancer, and had involved her entire thyroid gland and the surrounding lymph nodes.

 

“It was like time just stopped,” Maria says. “Not knowing was the hardest part. I just wanted a plan. In hindsight, it was a big lesson for me, of God taking control away and testing my trust and my faith, because I couldn’t fix it.”

 

The end result of all the examinations was Stage 1 papillary thyroid cancer, which was considered 95% treatable. However, the fact that lymph nodes were involved meant treatment would be needed on an extended basis. “The word ‘remission’ is not an option,” Maria says, “At some point, it will come back.” Maria endured a 10-hour surgical procedure to remove her thyroid. More treatments followed, along with additional surgery to remove lymph nodes for testing, as well as the removal of her thymus.

 

In spite of her illness and its aftermath, Maria feels very blessed. “God placed the right people in my path, and controlled the timing of everything,” she says. “From discovering the problem, to having an employer who was understanding and accommodating, to finding the right doctors who provided expert treatment, everything just worked out.”

 

These days, Maria’s greatest joy is her son Cade, who turns two this fall. “It was never my plan to have a child this late in life, but the cancer diagnosis delayed those plans,” she says. “I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at 31. The treatments, surgeries, and so on, contained radioactive components, so I had to get all that out of my body before I could prepare to have a child.”

 

The time and effort spent was well worth it to Maria, although her priorities underwent a major shift. “A lot of things have fallen off the radar,” she says. “If it doesn’t bring me joy, I just don’t have the time for it anymore. So, the things that I am passionate about and care about, I make time for, and the rest of it just has to be reset.”

 

In the face of all that she has been through, Maria has developed a greater understanding and concern for the struggles of others. “I love that saying, ‘Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle,’” she says. “Sometimes we’re so hard on each other, and I’m harder on myself than anyone else, but to be supportive of each other instead of tearing each other down, that’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned.”