Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza spoke Friday morning at the Renewing Illinois Summit at the SIU Student Center.

She asked the students attending the summit if they had ever been asked about what they wanted to do for their careers. If she had been asked that question just after college, her answer would not have been holding public office.

Mendoza told stories that explained how exactly she become a public official. 

When Mendoza was 7 years old, she started playing soccer. There were no girls teams, so she played on the boys soccer teams. This worked until she went to high school and learned she was not allowed to try out or play on the school’s only soccer team – a boys team.

After discussions with the school principal, he told her parents to contact the American Civil Liberties Union to get the rules changed. They had already filed a suit for a female soccer player at another school.

After the suit got the rules changed, the schools worked together to form a girls soccer team.

“This is a clear view of how I tried to combat wrongs and make them right,” Mendoza said.

She ended up attending Trinity University on a soccer scholarship.

After her college graduation, Mendoza was running an errand with her father. He suggested that she read the mail while he went into a store. In the mail was a political flyer geared toward the Hispanic community. Mendoza said it was filled with mistakes.

By the time her father rejoined her, she had found 11 blatant errors in the Spanish on the flyer.

“If this is the level of support they are giving our community seeking our votes, what would he do for us as a representative?” Mendoza asked.

Her father suggested that she make a phone call. She called the number from the flyer that evening and a man answered the phone. She met him and they hit it off.

“I made that phone call and it changed my life,” Mendoza said.

The person on the other end of the phone call introduced her to politics. That call changed the direction of her life.

“Don’t be afraid to take strides,” she told the students.

She got involved in public finance while she was a young state representative.

There were three things they did not talk about in Mendoza’s family: Sex, religion and money. She said that money is only a taboo subject for people who don’t know about money.

She told the students that knowing about finances is one of the most important things we can do. She told the students they needed to open a Roth IRA and to Google the term compound interest.

Mendoza was contacted on her first day as comptroller by a disabled lady who was on the verge of losing her insurance. Insurance was especially important to this lady because the insurance provided a ventilator and intravenous food which kept her alive.

Mendoza was able to help her, and that lady is still alive today.

“If I do nothing else, I will take care of vulnerable citizens of the state,” she said.

She highlighted her successes as comptroller in getting the backlog of bills paid, shortening the time it takes to pay bills, upgrades in the state’s credit grade and building the state’s rainy day fund.

She also talked about the state and country’s need to be able to work across the aisle with people who do not always agree. She explained that she was friends with the late Judy Baar Topinka, a Republican who served as comptroller. 

Despite some disagreements, they were able to come together and work on things good for the state of Illinois and the people living in the state.

She has also worked with State Sen. Dale Fowler on several issues. Mendoza would like to see more of that happen. 

She ended her talk by reminding the students again to open a Roth IRA and to Google compound interest.