24 | OCTOBER 31 • 2024 J
N
I
n 2006, Lisa Korotkin and Jared
Rothberger both worked for JARC
— starting employment there with-
in one month of each other. Jared was
doing direct care work and ran some of
their social programs while Lisa worked
in human resources. Lisa kept a little
candy dish on the corner of her desk,
which was a perfect excuse for Jared to
visit.
“That little candy dish was the start of
something much bigger,
” Jared said.
At the time, he had a longtime
girlfriend and Lisa was meeting local
Jewish guys through JDate.
“I grew up in Farmington Hills,
attended Hillel Day School, Tamarack
and BBYO so I knew a lot of the guys
Lisa was talking to on JDate,
” Jared said.
Lisa, who had grown up in
Birmingham and attended Seaholm
High, naturally pumped Jared for back-
ground info on all these guys.
One Monday, Lisa shared that she’
d
broken things off with the latest guy
she’
d been seeing.
On Tuesday, Jared sat down in her
office, smirked, and shared that he’
d
be breaking up with his girlfriend on
Wednesday.
“Until that moment, I didn’t have
any clue he was interested in me,
” Lisa
shared. That Friday, Jared and his room-
mate made dinner for Lisa and one of
her friends. “I pretended that I wanted
to set up his roommate with my friend.
I knew it wasn’t a match, I just wanted
an excuse to hang out!” Lisa laughed.
Their second date was the JARC
fundraiser at The Lion King in
December 2007.
“I remember being nervous about
holding Lisa’s hand because we weren’t
out as a couple yet to our coworkers. We
waited until the lights went down when
we didn’t think anyone would notice,
”
Jared said.
“From that point on, we were insepa-
rable,
” said Lisa.
Inter-office romance can get messy
and is even sometimes frowned upon.
When Lisa and Jared started dating, the
human resources handbook mandated
that they had to report it to the HR
manager … which was Lisa!
“For me, it was easy because all I had
to do was jokingly tell Lisa, but Lisa had
to tell her direct supervisor,
” Jared said.
“She was all nervous when she went
into the office, but then I heard her boss
scream, ‘Oh, my God, I’m so happy for
you!’”
Lisa and Jared kept their romantic
lives separate from work.
“I wouldn’t let him cross the thresh-
old of my office unless someone else
was there!” Lisa said. “I was committed
to staying professional … Plus, you
know, there were way too many yentas
in the office!”
Their proposal was memorable, if a
bit fishy … Lisa, who’s famously always
loved penguins and even adopted a
penguin at the zoo, visited the zoo with
Jared on the one-year anniversary since
they started dating. Jared had organized
a special behind-the-scenes tour of the
exhibit.
At the time, the zoo never allowed
people actually in the exhibit, but Jared
secretly arranged to pop the question
within a display inside the penguinar-
ium. Imagine Lisa’s surprise when she
looked through the glass and saw their
entire extended families watching them!
That’s when Jared dropped to his knee
and proposed.
“I didn’t expect a penguin proposal!”
Lisa said.
Leading up to the proposal, they had
been talking about marriage. In fact, a
few weeks prior to that, they’
d had their
first “big fight” when Jared spent $200
on the full series of The West Wing on
DVD.
“Lisa was so mad at me when I got
home,
” Jared laughed. “She said, ‘We
need to be saving up for a ring!’ She
didn’t know that I already had the ring,
which I wanted to be a surprise, so I
had to just take it and pretend to be all
apologetic!”
For her part, Lisa said, “I was his HR
director and knew exactly how much he
was earning! When I heard how much
he paid for the ring, I freaked out about
that, too!”
The couple married in November
2009 at Temple Beth El. “It was my dad’s
dream wedding; he planned it more
than I did,
” Lisa laughingly said.
Today the couple have two sons, Milo,
13, and Levi, 11. Milo’s bar mitzvah, also
held at Temple Beth El in April 2024,
with most of the same people present,
felt very similar to Lisa and Jared’s wed-
ding.
Together, they’ve “done a circuit
on boards” — Jared’s on the board of
Temple Beth El and Hebrew Free Loan;
Lisa’s on the board for Tamarack and a
co-chair for Send a Kid to Tamarack.
“We left the nonprofit world profes-
sionally, but we never really left,
” Lisa
laughed. Today the couple co-own JAN-
PRO Detroit and Jan-Supply, a commer-
cial janitorial cleaning business and a
janitorial supply business.
They still credit their meeting to
JARC.
“We never would have met other-
wise if it wasn’t for working together!
It was like crossing the great divide of
Telegraph!” laughed Lisa.
This column will appear biweekly. If you’d
like to share your ‘meet-cute’ story, email
burstynwithjoy@hotmail.com.
An Office
Romance and
Penguin Proposal
ROCHEL BURSTYN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
OUR COMMUNITY
HOW WE MET
Jared Rothberger and
Lisa Korotkin at the
“penguin proposal.”
Jared and
Lisa on their
wedding day
Jared and
Lisa and
sons Milo
and Levi