early experience

I have always enjoyed making things and learning about what is happening around me. Culinary School taught me the skills to work in high pressure situations. When you are cooking, organization, time management, and people skills are just as important as starting with good ingredients. Cooking led me to hotels where I learned about managing client expectations and setting budgets. From there, I went on to help clients plan large citywide conventions. I was the bridge between the hotels and the meeting planners. 

AGENCY LIFE

The agency I worked for specialized in real estate development projects. Our creative team consisted of graphic and interior designers, web developers and craftsmen. My role was to manage communication between our team and our clients, and to keep all projects on time and under budget. It was exciting and fast paced.

TEAM BUILDING

My next opportunity was to manage the housing team for the 2008 Democratic National Convention. The team I led planned the hotel package for everyone attending the convention in Denver (over 80,000 total room nights!) A merger and several promotions later took me through the summer of 2014.

CREATIVE ENTREPRENEUR

In 2014, I took a short sabbatical to be home with my children and during this time, I helped a new business establish a web presence, got interested in exploring technology and design, and I started my own small business — designing and sewing bags, and continuing to learn to make things in general. 

UX design

I love UX Design because of the opportunity to learn about the people using a product, to think about how a product is used and why, and to sift through options to make improvements. I love the content strategy and information architecture part of UX because making sense out of large amounts of data is satisfying to me. Bringing efficiency to a task that someone does everyday is rewarding. The design process of sketching, wireframes, testing and making improvements along the way, while collaborating with a team is exciting. Most of all I want to help people, and to keep learning.