My Passion for Project Management

I started my career as an English teacher and then as a school counselor. (And yes, these skills are incredibly useful in EVERY role!) I was in charge of all school assessments (ACTs, SATs, state assessments, etc.), so I had to be efficient and effective in planning, scheduling, staffing, communicating, and documenting. My husband saw me working through all the tasks in an Excel sheet one day and told me I'd make a great project manager. I didn't even know what that was, but I started looking into it over the next year or so, and the rest, as they say, is history!

Turns out, I've always been a project manager at heart and am currently the PMO Director at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC). As a former educator, I enjoy working in higher education, and I use my counseling skills all the time, especially in politically charged or challenging projects. I particularly like knowing that the work we do in the Project Management Office improves the work environment for faculty and students, allowing them to focus on teaching and learning. Health care impacts everyone, everywhere, every day, and the projects we manage positively affect KUMC teaching, research, and learning. We can make a real difference in the future of healthcare.

When employees are worrying about or working around troublesome, outdated, or otherwise ineffective technology and processes, their main focus at work doesn’t get their full attention. My goal is to resolve those issues as efficiently and effectively as possible to ensure that faculty can teach, students and learn and researchers can discover, because in the long run, it impacts everyone. Project management is very powerful and requires us to be true leaders in our organizations!