Best Of

There were so many things I wanted to do when I was a kid. Some of them I have done and found it wasn't for me. Other things I have done and found they are better for me as a hobby. And then yet other things were great for a time but I have since moved on from. Now I get to express my inner nerd and build Smartsheet solutions full time, my tree service keeps me moving, and my small engine repair keeps me tinkering.

Growing up with sci-fi novels and tv shows, always wanted to work in the space industry. Today, I'm in business development in the Aussie Ag- an Food-tech sector. Reckon we'll see 'Space Farmer' as a job ad in our lifetime.

An astronomer, until I realized it involved more than looking at the sky through a telescope!

I always thought I wanted to work with kids when I was younger. Be it as a teacher, pediatrician, or what have you. Took me until after I graduated from college to realize that my true nerdy love was numbers and organization. By chance, I managed to snag a position in Accounting where I was at the time and my mentor was more than happy to teach me the "secret Excel things". I was hooked! Now, after many decades, I still work in Accounting and I love it! My days are filled with figuring out the difficult problems ("Why is my balance off by a penny?!) and continuing to build my skills as I share my knowledge with others. I guess that means I'm still a teacher. Either way, my nerd heart is happy! ❤️

When I was a kid, I wanted to be the first woman President of the United States. I wrote an essay about this in the 6th grade. For some reason, I believed I needed to become a lawyer as the first step toward this huge goal (although - and I am dating myself here - Ronald Reagan was the president at the time, and he was an actor, so ... 🤷🏻‍♀️) My teacher happened to be married to a lawyer, and she would take me after school once a week to his office to observe. He, in turn, took me to court with him a few times. That path led me to law school. To my great relief, there wasn't a math section on the LSAT, and one of my favorite jokes was that I went to law school to because there was no math. (Although, that wasn't entirely true ...) I practiced for about 13 years before my dissatisfaction and disillusionment (such a long story) lead me to a second career in business strategy and operations. And, whoooo boy, is there math aplenty. But, that yielded one of the greatest revelation of my life - I am, in fact, not bad at math at all. I often wonder what path I would have followed had I "math" mentor the way my sixth grade teacher and her spouse mentored and nurtured my presidential ambitions (of which I now have negative-infinity-squared. 😆)

When I was a kid I wanted to be a pediatrician. I wanted nothing but to be able to help and heal children. Now, as an adult, I work for a company that helps our tiniest patients. We have cameras and other applications and resources in NICUs around the world. I am a Project Manager for the MilkTracker team which is a HIPAA compliant feeding management system. Prior to that I was an integration team lead doing both leadership and development of interfaces.

A lot of things happened in life to get me where I am. As a young adult, I never thought I'd be making more than $10 an hour and that I would just end up as another statistic. I was half right....I am a statistic being a woman in computer information systems.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be just like my dad and deal with stocks/finance and be somewhere in that realm and industry. I always had a love for numbers and math as a student, and I took that passion with me throughout college.

I currently work for Target HQ and have overlaps into finance alongside handling the budgeting for my team. A large portion of my job also involves Project Management and stakeholder engagement which satisfies the "business" part of my brain.

I would be incredibly proud to know as a child that I'd wind up in a career that aligns with my passion! I'm also proud that I started from the ground up beginning at 16 years old pushing carts in a parking lot & cashiering, and knowing that I wanted to do more and to make a positive impact with the work that I do, regardless of my position.