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Learning Program Manager |
Sr. Learning Experience Designer

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Beyond my Resume: About Me

I am meticulous, goal-oriented, and passionate about meaningful, authentic learning experiences. I learned from my roots in academia that anyone can talk smart or create really great content, but if learners are not able to connect to it and make sense of it - then we've missed the target. We've all seen the tendency to blame users for not being successful in their learning pathways. I get it. But our job is to be empathic and meet the needs of our learner populations, not the other way around. 

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Therefore, I am also data-driven and empathy focused. Discovering and aggregating the best data set can reveal impact and help me connect more with my users' needs. It can be time-consuming and costly at times to acquire, but more often than not - there's data that gets overlooked or can be hunted down, with keen instincts, that can be extrapolated, dumped on a dashboard of sorts, and then used to drive transformation of learning impact (sometimes even transforms impact of a product).

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As an instructional designer, I'm often asked - "what authoring tools do you use?" I learned early on to not build my career around a specific authoring tool - but - give me a tool necessary to meet a demand, and I'm your huckleberry! Tech companies come and go, popular trends in the industry ebb and flow. A decade ago everything I heard for SCORM authoring was Captivate, seems like now it's Storyline; years back, Final Cut was cutting edge for videos, now it seems like it's Premiere Pro. Plus, there's also technology ecosystems to navigate within a given organization that require certain integration capabilities or budget parameters. It's my job to determine the best possible set of tools and delivery methods in a given environment that executes the highest success of our goals.

 

I love designing and architecting not only specific pieces of content, but with artistic ownership of the learning program and pathway. If there is a SaaS product involved, which there usually is - I love to engage in or establish tight feedback loop and comms with developers and product owners. Even when roles have been reversed and the tech companies were my vendors - I still sit on calls with them often working out details for maximum success of my users. It is an art; the skill set of leveraging the needs of business, developers, product, and customer demands - into the most effective learning pathway is my craft.

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Last and perhaps an understated foundation to finding success in any of these endeavors is always relationships. I believe in equity, respect, collaboration, transparency. End result products are always better when relationships are fostered and nurtured along the way.

IceBreakers, Fun Facts:

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Biking at sunrise through the lava fields in Iceland, 2017

Some random, fun facts about me:

  • I have a second home in central Mexico and am bilingual (Spanish)

  • I have seen the Northern lights in Alaska, Iceland, and Norway

  • Despite some injuries--I still manage to backpack the high sierras, bike ride to get groceries instead of drive, and I love to kayak.

  • I have two beautiful young adult children and also raised my niece and nephews through their later years as Aunt Deb.

  • I grow about 8 different species of chiles in my yard for amazing salsas.

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Backpacking past Devil's Postpile to Minaret Lake, 2020

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Ensalada de Nopales with fresh chiles and tomatoes

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Kayaking w/Lila at Lake Mojave

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