In the Beginning...

• Rural Kansas farm kid with dreams of exploring the world I had only read about in books
• Life changes forever with a chance to travel to France and Spain for two weeks in high school with my Spanish teacher. Can't afford the trip. Save up about $300 but still need about $900 more.

Serendipity strikes...

• My grandpa accidentally runs into my car with the tractor and leaves a giant dent in the door. 
• Car still runs great, but looks really ugly. 
• Get a $900 insurance check to get the car fixed. 
• Instead use the money to send myself to Europe. 
• Car door never gets fixed. #sorrynotsorry

As a result...

• I'm inspired and empowered to go to college in Boston (as far away from Kansas as I could get in the continental USA)
• Studying abroad three different semesters during college (Geneva, Switzerland; Orleans, France; and London, England, where I attended the London School of Economics and interned in the British Parliament)
• Head to grad school to learn how universities run (Higher Education Administration) and launch my career in Global Education and Meaningful Travel. 

My Roaring Global 20s...

• I spend most of my 20s focused on strategically growing my career in the youth travel industry
• Teaching at a university in China for a year
• Designing international internships in Europe for universities across the US
• Traveling around the world on a ship working for Semester at Sea
• Running study abroad at the University of South Dakota
• And starting what would become my first business - a little blog called Inside Study Abroad.
• Began researching and teaching myself everything I could about content marketing, search engine marketing, social media strategy, UX/UI design, and all sorts of tech and digital strategies to grow my reach and impact

Intern to Executive in 4 Years

• As I grew my career, I started to get noticed in my industry for my tech, marketing, and digital strategy knowledge and expertise
• I'm head hunted by Global Educators, a new consortium of study abroad companies to spearhead the student advising and marketing division. Help grow the company by 35% in less than six months.
• Soon after I'm offered a job to run the largest marketing platform for meaningful travel in the world (GoAbroad.com) becoming their first Senior Vice President overseeing two offices on two continents and a team of over 100. 
• In less than three years, I triple the team, the global reach, and the revenue to multiple 7-figures. 
• Running someone else's company taught me two very important lessons: #1 - I did not want to keep building someone else's dream and, #2 - I was an entrepreneur to my core. 

Leaning In To My Multiple Passions

• Through all of this...I've continued to maintain a small presence with my blog Inside Study Abroad 
• People start coming to me for help getting a job in the study abroad industry
• Start doing individual career coaching, but feeling the strain on my time, saying the same things again and again, and not being able to scale...

And then the pandemic happened...

• In 2019, after 18 months of global gallivanting, I returned to the U.S. This began a long battle with clinical depression, a struggle I still have to this day and something I'm passionate about sharing and being very real about in a public way. If you're reading this far, no matter how well your mental health is in this moment, I encourage you...I implore you to start therapy. It's like green juice for the soul - good for you and might help you stay healthy long term.
• And if a year of deep, dark depression wasn't enough, 2020 hit. Like so many people, 2020 turned my world upside down. My company Inside Study Abroad was essentially ground to a halt over night (as the travel industry crumbled) and spent 18 months figuring out my next steps.
• In late 2021, I accepted a Director of International Education position at a local college (no one was more surprised than me) and then eight months later was head hunted by an ed tech startup to head industry marketing. 
• Now, I'm a nomad with a nest in Kansas City, a solopreneur side hustler with a job I love, and always finding that balance between striving for the next dream and reveling in the present moment.