Her Story
About Emily
My career path has been a little interesting and non-traditional, especially for event planners. I went to school for agricultural communications, planning to be a rodeo journalist or something really along those lines. After interning with a large-scale cattle convention out of Texas, I really fell in love with events and conventions and trade shows specifically. From there, I changed my focus and worked more within events, bouncing around from various different nonprofits within the agricultural field until very recently, when I stepped out of that specific industry into planning events within the nuclear industry. I've been with my current company since March, so it's a little bit new, but I've been within this field for about 8 years. In my current role, my biggest focus is really planning the logistics around our annual trade show that we host, working on our floor plan, what the conference layout is going to be, working with our exhibitors and sponsors. One big theme throughout my entire career has been the relationships I build with my exhibitors and sponsors, so really honing in on that and building that up with them is definitely something that I try to bring in day-to-day.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Emily
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think just not being afraid to continuously try new things, because a lot of the times, whenever I finish a really successful event, or finish a really successful campaign, or whatever it may be, a lot of it stemmed from something I may have heard from before, something I may have tried from before, something I may have just witnessed before, and really been inspired. I've taken that inspiration to grow it into something really, really great. So, I think just finding inspiration everywhere has really been able to help me continuously be successful.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
One of my very first mentors told me that our job as event planners is to be the person who turns the light on. That's all the attendees should know us as, because if all we've done is turn the lights on, then we have planned a successful event.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
It really helps - they always say, you know, you're a jack of all trades, but a master of none, but if you can really find what you enjoy within all those traits, you'll slowly master them, and that's what's really important. Yes, you might want to focus on one specific thing, but all those unique experiences you do are really going to help you later on. There's been things down the road that I may have done once just to try it out, but I've been able to reference that back or use that later on in my life without even ever thinking that was ever going to come up again. So, really just trying to make yourself as well-rounded and get as many experiences as you can will just help you later on.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think we have the opportunity for a lot of really creative people to come in and try new things. The events field is always expanding and always growing and always looking for fresh ideas, so somebody can come in and say, let's just try something a little bit different, I think can really, really help, just this entire industry to flourish.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Definitely, my drive and determination, I would say, is something I'm very proud of. Even when things get hard, I'm not gonna give up, ever. I'm putting my head down, getting it done, seeing a project through, no matter what. So I would say that, and then just the overall passion of how much my cup is filled up whenever I'm working on these events, and I see them through, and I see how much everybody has enjoyed them. So, between just the drive of my determination, but then my cup being filled up by the end of it, it just keeps all going.
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