I’m a program and project manager, professional question-asker, and the person who will probably make a spreadsheet for it.
I’ve spent more than a decade working in and around the WordPress ecosystem, with much of that time focused on community, customer programs, content, education, and events. The projects have changed over the years, but the part I enjoy most has stayed pretty consistent: taking something with a lot of moving pieces and figuring out how to make it work.
I like knowing where we’ve been before deciding where we’re going. When I take on something new, I ask questions. A lot of them. I want to understand what’s already working, where people are getting stuck, what we’ve tried before, and what everyone involved needs from the project.
Then I start making order out of things.
How I work
I’m a Type A person who decided to use those powers for good.
I like a good process, clear documentation, realistic timelines, and knowing who owns what. I also know that a process is only useful if it helps people do their jobs. If maintaining the system becomes more work than the work itself, something has gone wrong.
A lot of my career has involved being the person behind the scenes making sure things happen: speakers know where to be, content gets published, stakeholders know what’s happening, deadlines don’t disappear, follow-ups get sent, budgets stay on track, and someone remembers the detail everyone else forgot about.
I’m comfortable working independently, and I especially enjoy work that requires coordination across teams. Give me a project involving several people with different priorities and areas of expertise, and I’ll start figuring out how the pieces fit together.
The human part matters
Long before I worked in tech, I studied nonprofit administration and started my career in public mental health. That experience shaped a lot of how I still think about work. Programs, processes, and organizations ultimately exist because there are people on the other side of them.
That carried naturally into community work. People can tell when they’re being treated like a metric, and some of the most useful things you can do are listen, communicate clearly, respect people’s time, and follow through on what you say you’re going to do.
Those things matter whether I’m working with customers, coworkers, contributors, speakers, agency owners, or someone I met five minutes ago.
I’m also comfortable saying, “I don’t know. Let me find out.”
Outside of work
I live in Michigan, where I can often be found procrasti-cleaning when I need to get my thoughts in order. There is a suspiciously strong correlation between complicated problems and suddenly deciding the kitchen needs to be cleaned.
I’m curious by nature, happiest when I’m learning something, and firmly in the camp that work can be taken seriously without taking ourselves seriously all the time.