Moving back into Product Leadership within the Product organization, my new skill set was put to use. In this role, I was given the greenfield projects First Orion needed to bring to market quickly to address those opportunities that come quickly and have limited windows of maximum opportunity. Considering many of these projects are still underway, details I can provide are slim, but the position itself continued to grow my leadership skills in new ways.While I had always worked closely with the different departments and leadership levels within First Orion, its partners, and its customers, as a Senior Director leading big new initiatives my daily work aligned more with overall vision, planning, and positioning of First Orion as a whole in comparison to individual products. The time I spent in this position was both fun and fulfilling, as I grew my executive leadership skills.

Following the overwhelming success of Branded Calling in the marketplace and with the solution spreading to cover every major US telecom provider and users across the world, I found myself with the opportunity to put my proven skill set to work once again in the world of R&D.With so many opportunities available to them, First Orion needed someone who could take a dedicated cross-functional team, did deep into a problem and establish root-level truths and viable product solutions quickly and, most importantly, from a strong Product-focus that prioritizes the end-user above the drive to build something new and cool just because it’s new and cool.Due to the nature of this position, I can’t provide details on the solutions my team worked on, but during this time in my career, I grew my overall leadership and personal tech skills tremendously as I worked with a small, but highly talented team to innovate like never before.

With Branded Calling taking off and making seismic and beneficial disruptions in the market, the team naturally had to grow. While I’ve always been willing to wear many and any hat necessary to move a product and/or solution forward, being a Senior Leader required the foresight and wisdom to know when to let go. With my transition into a Director role, I worked diligently with the VP of Product to build a team of Product Managers and Analysts who would take ownership of the distinct pieces of Branded Calling.While I maintained ownership of the overall vision of Branded Calling and was still responsible for the “big decisions” of the overall solution, especially in regards to Executive directives and how Branded Calling fit within the overall company vision, I embraced and fully supported the transfer of ownership of features and disciplines to new owners.This maturation didn’t just apply to Product Managers. While I had enjoyed wearing the hat of a Solutions Architect, UI/UX designer, QA Engineer, and anything else the Product had needed while being initially launched, this time in my career was spent helping to strengthen those individual group’s ownership of their domains in regard to working with the Product Managers and Analysts added to my team.

Moving into a Senior Product role allowed me the opportunity to “spread my wings”, so to speak, and take more ownership driving the overall picture in regards to Branded Calling. With the solution growing daily, the team and I shifted gears and began naturally maturing away from the start-up and greenfield mentality that allowed us to disrupt the market so quickly. With clients and users depending on the stability of the solution, I worked to enhance and solidify my understanding of agile development practices, establishing myself as a premiere leader in the management of life cycle development at First Orion.While maturing the processes we used in the creation of the Product, I continued to lead the cross-functional team in the development of new features and enhancements based on customer-feedback and in-depth data analysis. Working directly with First Orion’s unique team of Data Scientists, I learned invaluable skills in analyzing and making meaning from large amounts of data. This allowed the creation of useful and insightful Personas, helping bridge the gap between a business idea and the engineering solution created to achieve that idea.

Arriving at First Orion in 2018, my Product Management skills had been shaped from direct user input and data analysis from the food production facilities I had worked closely with at CAT Squared. Moving into a more traditional Product role, I grew my skills in market research, UI/UX design, and Go-to-Market activities. My wealth of experience in leading cross-functional teams across the world, working directly with stakeholders from multiple continents and cultures, and managing budgets, deadlines, and deliverables for onsite system implementations made the transition to traditional Product Management that much easier.Once settled in at First Orion, I put my natural curiosity and can-do attitude to work learning the new technologies and frameworks I’d be working with, such as mobile-first design, RESTful API design, and working in the cloud. Moving from the world of food production, which is driven so heavily by continuous improvement KPIs and working within the bounds of food safety and traceability, took a ton of time and effort. By working with a great team, however, I was able to learn the technologies, regulations, and unspoken rules that drive the space.Putting all this to work, the cross-functional team I led rolled out the world’s first Branded Calling solution in the forms of a consumer app and an integrated carrier solution. While leading the team, we innovated constantly, with the majority of my patents coming from this time. As the technical solution evolved and grew, I continued to foster cross-company relationships with everyone from Sales, to Marketing, to Engineering, to Privacy and Security, and, of course, Executive Leadership, to forge a cohesive and unified goal of building great products that help prevent scammers from impersonating businesses, help legitimate businesses raise answer and contact rates, and help ordinary people know when an incoming call is a real call they should answer or a scam call they should avoid.

After receiving my Master of Arts in Technical & Professional Writing, I began teaching technical writing courses for the university. These courses included traditional, five-month course and online, accelerated 8-week Technical Writing Courses.Delivering five months of lectures and assignments in a condensed eight week format to a 100% remote classroom supercharged my knowledge and skillset with working and thriving remotely. With teaching, one of the greatest measures of your own success is the success of the students. I take great pride in my own growth and my student's growth in learning how to work remotely before it was even on the radar of most businesses.

As the Professional Services Manager, I oversaw the implementation and training for CAT²'s paperless, real-time Food Safety and Quality Management data collection software (FSQM), Further Processing Tool Series software, Primary Processing Tool Series software, Laboratory Information Management System software, Egg Inventory and Layering software, and Yield Management software.The Professional Services department was also responsible for Project Management before and during implementations and customer support and outreach after the implementation is complete. The Professional Services Department also provided a complete Business Intelligence offering, including SSRS reporting, SPC Charting, and Visual KPIs. All of our reporting features were accessed natively through our Executive Dashboard application, removing the need for IT to manage report server access by user, and adding an extra layer of security. This security layer allowed admin users, not IT, to build graphical KPIs (guages, charts, grids, etc), build SPC Charts, and deploy SSRS reports for users, allowing access by user and/or group.I also had the privilege of serving as the Product Manager for our Food Safety and Quality Management system. This system included paperless HACCP; Continuous Cook Temp Capture; Real-time data capture from scales, checkweighers, temp probes, PLCs, etc; Yield Tracking; and the removal and replacement of all QA and Production Checks/Forms from the plant floor. We offered full CAPA & Pre-Shipment Review capabilities and robust real-time and historical reporting. We turned QA data in to a continuous improvement tool while retaining full traceability and providing lightning-fast auditing capabilities.

Created and delivered training for CAT²'s food safety, quality, production, and yield management software applications.Provided customized training to every level of user, from hourly floor workers to super users and plant managers.Designed and created integrated software help.Designed and created training courses, FAQs, and SOP's for individual client accounts.

Researched, Wrote, and Edited internal product and process documentation:- Administration guides- User guides- Installation guides- Release notes- Training materials (both written and computer based)Delivered training for support teams. Developed company-wide documentation standards and templates.

Graduate Student Composition Instructor*:- Comp Fundamentals- Comp I- Comp II*Instructed freshman level writing courses, teaching fundamental writing and research skills.

University Writing Center Intern. - Supervised undergraduate interns.- Conferenced with UALR students to address essay structure and layout. WCRP Webmaster- Redesigned the Writing Center Research Project (WCRP) website.- Migrated the WCRP database to UALR servers.