Corie Pauling comes from a family of strong women. “My grandmother was my best friend,” she says. “She taught me to love reading and puzzles. And she told me I was smart. She always believed in me, and that’s so important for a young girl.”

Corie, 41, the first in her blue-collar Detroit family to go to college, also got tremendous support from her mother. “She was supposed to go to college herself, in Tennessee. She went down there with one semester of tuition money in an envelope and had it stolen the first week, so the school sent her home. She always told us kids, ‘You are my success.’ That’s something I’m just coming to fully understand.”

Corie honors her mother and her grandmother by becoming a strong woman in her own right, and her own way. In addition to her work at TIAA-CREF, she’s a community leader. Her work with homeless pregnant women, her coaching of low-income kids for a mock trial competition (they made the finals) and other civic and professional activities earned her the 2011 Young Civic Leader Award from the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.

Corie is a triathlete and half-marathoner, something she couldn’t have imagined a couple of years ago, when she could barely run two blocks: It’s now a passion, a priority and a commitment. (She even changed her ’do—from a chemically relaxed, straight style to a curly Afro—to save time on post-workout grooming.)  She’s also the mother of two girls. “I want to inspire them. I want them to know they can succeed if they’re honest, kind and compassionate and if they work hard. I hope I’ve earned their trust, love and respect—I know you have to work to earn that every single day.”