How do you describe your current position?
Currently, I'm an associate dean at Waukesha County Technical College. I'm a bit of an atypical associate dean in that I don't stay within my sphere. I oversee six academic programs in IT, which means I manage instructors, help students figure out their schedules, and deal with all kinds of administrative tasks. It's one of the most fulfilling jobs I've ever had. What we get to do every day is transform lives. One of the things that's great about the technical college system is that it’s a short degree program designed to help people take the next step in their life. Sometimes we have students who start their classes with us living out of their cars. By the time they're finishing our programs, they have a job that allows them to have an apartment and pay their bills. One of the things that's really unique about working in higher ed is that you're rarely stuck in a lane. In some things, I'm just a participant. Other times, I’m leading the initiatives. It’s a really great balance that keeps me feeling happy in whatever I do.
What are some examples of different projects and initiatives you’ve worked on recently?
So, the challenge with being in a leadership role is that you spend a lot more time in meetings than you ever thought you would. On any given day or week, I'm looking at my enrollment numbers. I'm helping students with problems that they may have. I'm helping my instructors figure out new ways to build an activity in class that's going make it fun and interactive. AI is currently changing how school works in general, whether that’s how students interact with their assignments or the knowledge that we're trying to have them learn. WCTC, where I work, was actually the first to offer an undergraduate degree in artificial intelligence in the state. And I helped build that. That’s the kind of thing that I get to be able to do. I investigate what's the next thing businesses and industries are looking for in employees. Overall, it’s this great big puzzle, and every day, I’m putting it together. Sometimes, you know where the edges are and what the picture is supposed to be. Other times, you've got no clue, but you get to go in every day and figure it out.
Do you have a preference between interaction-oriented or individual, research-based work?
Despite being an introvert, I need to collaborate with people to do my work. Leadership can’t happen in a vacuum. As a leader, my job is to sit there and raise the people up around us. I'm doing mid-year reviews right now and I’m asking the people around me all the questions to get them where they want to be. Where are you now? Where do you want to be? How do I help you get there? That's the way I operate in most of the meetings that I'm in, whether I'm leading or I'm a participant.
What inspired your interest in this line of work and what did that path look like?
It was a very windy road. I never would have thought this was my job. At one point, I considered elementary education, but after shadowing a teacher I realized it was definitely not for me. Then I thought about teaching college, but you had to have a PhD to teach at that level, which also didn’t align with what I wanted. I ended up getting my undergraduate degree in psychology and adult education. After that, I became an IT trainer. I did that in various ways for about 15 years, and then I became the manager of an IT Training Center, but I grew bored quickly. I stay at companies for a while, but I typically shift roles about every three to four years. Down that road, I went into leadership and ended up at the Department of Justice. I ended up with the DOJ because I knew the person who ran the IT department, and at that point, I left the world of training. Before I went there, I had already started my relationship with Waukesha County Technical College, where I am now. I started as an adjunct instructor there, so I taught part time while also working full time. I taught at night. It was only one night a week, but I loved it. I loved what I got to do. But the DOJ was still my biggest role. They needed someone who could go and talk to the business side of things to find out what the problem was that IT needed to solve. If you're not in IT, their technical jargon can get very confusing. It was my job to build those bridges and relationships between the two sectors.
In addition to communication, what skills do you believe are essential to succeeding in your career?
When we look at being a leader, you have to be able to push past your own fear. One of the best pieces of advice I can ever give someone, especially women, is say yes. Say yes to the opportunity, even if you think it is so far above what you can do. With boys, they're not necessarily told to go be a spectacle, but they aren't told that they can't. We as women need to be able to give ourselves permission to do this stuff, because no one else is going to give us that permission. It took me years to get there. It was only when I went to the DOJ that I decided that I was going to simply be who I was and not worry about what people wanted me to be. People can tell when you're being authentically you. I see it so often when I'm working with mentees looking to get that next step in their career.
We end up saying no to opportunities that come our way because we’re afraid to fail. You have to be willing to fail. Where I work failure is only failure if we don't learn from what happened. No one thought a technical college could do an artificial intelligence degree. Yet, we did, and it's highly successful. You have to be willing to say yes to the opportunity that gets presented to you, because if you say no, that opportunity may not come again.
As a woman in the professional field, what challenges or discrimination have you experienced? How did you overcome this?
I’ve worked in a male dominated industry in almost every position I've ever been in. It takes perseverance. You have to grow a thick enough skin or reach a point at which you don’t put up with it. At some places I've taken a stand. In other places I've left, like the Department of Justice. When I first started at DOJ, it was amazing. There were women in three of the leadership roles in IT. It was unheard of. But as time went on, and the female leadership started to retire, it started turning into a complete boy’s club. A female coworker and I could sit there and say things, and it was as though we weren’t even speaking. And then, my dream job happened to come along at the same time, and I was out of there.
It was an unbelievable experience. I went somewhere that just assumed I was competent. I knew nothing about AI other than being a sci-fi fantasy geek yet they trusted me to figure it out and launch an AI program. There is nothing like that feeling when someone assumes you're competent and gets out of your way.
Who are some role models or mentors in your life who have helped you become who you are today?
It may be a stereotypical answer, but I would have to say my parents. However, it’s not in the way that I think a lot of people necessarily think of it. My dad raised me, and he always told me that I had to accept the consequences of my actions. This started when I was young. He always used to say, if you want to do something and you don't have all the resources, you have to find a way to do it. If my step-siblings and I wanted to watch a TV show, we were each given only a half an hour of TV we could watch per day. If there was a show that was an hour long, we had to compromise with each other. I learned really early on how to work together to get to a desired goal.
I have the most tremendous respect for my mom. She went back to college when I was in high school. We found out that she had a learning disability, which is why she hadn't been successful before. She managed to graduate with her masters in mechanical engineering after she went back. My grandmother on my dad's side went back and got her PhD in nursing at age 63. These are some of the people who formed my world, and I've been lucky enough to have them on my own journey. More than family, there’s friends too. Sometimes, the mentor is just a really good friend who has the ability to provide a different perspective. I've been extremely lucky recently to have found a number of those people. It's part of why I like to mentor people. I see the value in having someone who can provide that other perspective.
What does being a leader mean to you?
Being a leader is about helping others to reach their greatest potential. That's what a leader is to me. I always tell my instructors that my job is to support them. If I'm supporting them and making sure that they're able to do what they can do, then the students are taken care of. Ultimately, it's about enabling the people around you to be the best version of themselves. A leader isn't out there to shine for themselves. They're out there to shine for others. The only way we know we succeeded is when someone comes and tells us that we made a difference in their life. That feeling is like nothing else in the world. It’s the quiet leaders who are the really neat ones. That's the kind of leader I want to be. I don't need to be the person on TV, although I am there more often than I really want to be. I get so much more joy out of being the person who's lifting the other people up and letting them have that opportunity to shine.
What is one last piece of advice you would give to young people looking to go into any sort of professional field?
Say yes. Say yes to the opportunity and to the things that you're scared of. It hurts if you fail. It really does. But what if you don't? What if you get to fly? If we can build a generation of women who fly and aren't afraid to fly, that power would be incomparable. Even then, that failure isn't necessarily failure. It's only failure if you don't learn from what happened.