Early Career
I began my professional career working in retail positions throughout high school and college. However, my vision was to become a college professor following the completion of my degree. Following my graduation with a Master of Music from the University of Akron, I picked up full time hours at Radio Shack, where I had been working for a number of years. Shortly after this transition, I had a college interview experience which changed the trajectory and course of my career. During the interview for an extremely part-time adjunct position (for a small liberal arts college), I was informed that having "second Master's degree" would be helpful in my job search. Needless to say, I didn't get the position. During this process, I reflected upon my professional goals and aspirations and realized that teaching and developing people was my true passion.
Discovering My Passion
Armed with this new knowledge and direction, I realized people management was a career path would allow me to pursue my passion in an environment which would be more rewarding and with greater growth paths. Quickly following the adjunct professor interview experience, I transitioned into a management role at Radio Shack. In a short period of time, I was assigned my first store manager position and quickly went to work turning around a store which had consistently underperformed. Within a few short months, our team was able to take a bottom performing store to being one of the top performing stores in the company. We maintained this high level of execution, and profitability until I was transitioned into a larger store in the area. Taking on leadership in a larger store meant leading a larger and more diverse team of professionals.
Career Transition
Unfortunately, by this time Radio Shack was encountering significant financial difficulties, which would eventually lead to their bankruptcy. Seeing this trajectory playing out, I made a transition into banking with a hope to continue my journey of people leadership with Huntington National Bank. During my time at Huntington, as an individual contributor, I achieved individual performance goals but the banking industry was not the right fit for me. I transitioned back into a retail management role with Sears Corporation. While I was back to my passion of leading and developing people, I again found myself working in an underperforming organization.
The trajectory of my career was again shifted with a phone call from a friend who was working for a company looking for someone with my background in customer service. This transition took a huge leap of faith, but I jumped in head first and embraced the opportunity to transition out of retail management and into a career in IT with Blackboard. This role, while an individual contributor role, allowed me to tackle new challenges and work in a field with significantly more growth potential and aligned with my personal interests and experiences. In addition, I was able to build a relationship with our client, Kent State University.
Finding My Stride
Following the previous course corrections and trajectory changes, I settled into a role leading a team of students working within the IT department at Kent State University. This role was ever changing and evolving, but consistently provided new challenges and the opportunity to grow my sphere of influence. Over time, additional student teams and functions were transitioned to me. This resulted in me managing a team of over 30 students, working across campus in IT support related functions.
In April 2019 I was given the opportunity to join the Union Home Mortgage IT Department. During my time at UHM, our IT team has grown to include ITSM and ITOM functions. This highly dynamic and rapidly growing organization continues to provide new opportunities and challenges as we work to build a world class IT organization here at UHM. I'm looking forward to continuing my professional journey as we build to the future!