Director of Alumni Affairs and Annual Giving, UT Southern

My position includes

connecting and reconnecting alumni, welcoming alumni into the UT System and encouraging alumni and friends to give annually.

To understand what I do, you must understand

I love networking with people and I don’t want anyone to be left out.

My favorite part of my job is

reconnecting with my former students, as well as connecting young alumni with seasoned professionals for mentoring.

As a kid I wanted to be

an agronomist to continue the legacy of my family’s farm in Indiana. As a teenager I just wanted to help others, but I knew I did not have the stomach to be a nurse or the patience to be a K-12 teacher. So, in college I majored in interpersonal communications knowing that wherever I landed I’d need to know how to communicate with others.

If I was gifted with a secret power, it would be

to ensure every person knows he/she/they are unconditionally loved.

My bucket list includes

growing enough produce in my garden to share with local food pantries and traveling the world with my family.

My personal motto is

the joy of the Lord is my strength.

My theme song is

“Ode to Joy”, also known as the hymn “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”.

Few know that I

started at nine years old driving the tractor with grain cart beside the moving combine to catch loads of corn.

The best piece of advice I ever received was

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” – John Wesley,  and “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I start each morning with

telling my spouse, daughter and our pets that I love them and to have a good day.