24 | OCTOBER 31 • 2024 J
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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