Mary Lou S. Ada says goodbye to CDA

Commonwealth Development Authority executive director Maria Lourdes S. Ada said goodbye to the agency she has been with for over a decade.

Ada decided not to renew her employment contract, which expired on Nov. 30, 2005.

“I’m eligible for retirement so I decided it’s time to move on,” she said in an interview Friday.

She is not retiring from work, though.

Ada, who finished a law degree, said that she wants to fulfill her longtime goal of practicing it in the CNMI.

“I have other plans. One of them is to enter the legal profession. I want to move on with my legal career,” she said.

CDA board chairman Tom Glenn A. Quitugua said that the board unanimously voted last Friday to keep Ada in her post but the executive director was already decided about her plan.

“Of course, her departure was not anticipated. We voted to retain her but she’s made up her mind. We can’t stop her anymore,” said Quitugua.

“We respect her decision,” he added.

The board has appointed loan officer Oscar C. Camacho as officer-in-charge of CDA.

Quitugua said the board would evaluate the position of the executive director and do a restructure of it.

He said the board will then open the “restructured” position to potential applicants.

He acknowledged that it would be “very hard to find a replacement” for Ada.

“It’s hard to find a person to replace a person who has held the position for so many years,” he said.

Ada who finished a bachelor’s degree in political science from Oregon State University went back to Saipan and worked at CDA as loan officer.

It was during this time that she was inspired to pursue law.

She said that as loan officer she noticed the language barrier between American lawyers and local residents.

In 1991, she went back to the U.S. mainland to study law.

Three years later, she came back to work in Superior Court.

But as she was preparing for her legal job, she got a call from CDA offering her an assignment that she could not resist.

In 1995, Ada was asked to lead the revitalization of MIHA, a federally funded housing program that benefits the low-income families.

MIHA is now called Northern Marianas Housing Corp.

Ada said she considers this her “greatest challenge and perhaps my greatest contribution” to the institution.

Ada was appointed as CDA executive director in 1999, a position she held until this year.