In this episode, Cody has a conversation with his mom, Sharon Liska. For the past 13 years, she has worked as a nurse at a neonatal intensive care unit at an Anchorage hospital. While she worked as a nurse, she continued her education and eventually moved to a Clinical Nurse Specialist position. To her, it’s more than a job. It’s a calling and a privilege to be welcomed into those sacred places of tragedy and happiness.
From owning a gym in the 80s to being a stockbroker in the 90s, her working life has been a series of careers, many of which have been in male-dominated professions. To be successful in that atmosphere, she had to navigate the sexism and male egos of the time. Which, a lot of the time, meant having to temper her intelligence.
From 1989 to 2007, she was an integral part of Boarderline Alaska Snow and Skate. Boarderline was founded by Cody's dad, Scott Liska, and his uncle, Jay Liska, in 1989. Sharon's job was damage control. Whenever there was trouble with the business or Scott had personal issues, she came to the rescue. She was routinely responsible for keeping track of and contributing to the financials of the business, even when it took precedence over her family. She says that to create a successful business, everything takes a backseat. And that “a business owns you, you don’t own that business.”