Team Member Spotlight: Amber Rathbun

Amber Rathbun, CPA, Senior Manager, provides tax support to individuals, nonprofits, and for-profit businesses and is an active member of Maner Costerisan’s nonprofit team. She cares deeply about her colleagues and their well-being and is always willing to lend a helping hand. Amber enjoys new projects that challenge her and always does what’s best for the firm.

Below is a quick interview with Amber, the first of our “Meet the Team” series.

What do you do for fun outside of work?

On weekends, my husband and I enjoy spending time in nature, whether visiting various parks, walking the trails, or getting out on the water paddleboarding. We like to observe wildlife and have slight obsessions with alligators, turtles, and birds. We also have a cat and two French bulldogs that provide a lot of amusement and snuggle time. I love to read, and if it’s not in the area of personal development, such as Atomic Habits by James Clear (10/10 highly recommend), then I can easily lose time swept away in a mystery/thriller/suspense book, racing to get to the end though the twists and turns to find out who the mystery culprit was and how they did it.  I also find puzzles, diamond art painting, or a simple deck of cards relaxing, but if I’m looking to multitask, music, audible books, and podcasts are fantastic methods to keep me simultaneously happy and productive.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

The ability to magically wish or transfer myself to another location instantaneously, which I guess you would call teleportation, would be amazing. I like to travel, which would cut out the car or flight time and allow more time for new experiences. I currently live in Georgia, but even while I grew up in Michigan, most of my family lived out of state, so the ability to zap myself over to visit family for dinner and pop myself back home would have been a game changer and still would be.

What is your favorite quote and why?

I’m not sure about a favorite quote, but I regularly jot down things that resonate with me or provide a mindset shift. I was listening to a favorite artist, Lissie, while this question was in the back of my mind, and I thought of one of her songs that says, “Cause the best days of my life are coming for me / Waiting to be realized / I keep my eye on that prize…I want more best days.”

I have a knack for putting my spin on things and providing an optimistic perspective. While this may not have been the artist’s intent of the words in the context of the song, what I hear in these words are:

• Keep trying new things.
• Continue to grow and grab ahold of opportunities that arise.
• Continue a path of constant learning.
• Keep having fun and keep having adventures.
• Strive to realize your full potential.
• Make time for the things that bring you joy and fulfillment.
• Create more best days for yourself – they are not all in the past; there is so much more to come!