Kristin Breen says she couldn’t sum up her new job as program coordinator at Walton College’s Information Technology Research Institute any better than her title does.
“When it says ‘program coordinator’ it really means it,” Breen said. Her job consists mostly of “coordinating people and places and things,” she says.
“We do a lot of events, and I help plan and execute those,” Breen says.
Breen grew up in Northwest Arkansas but moved to North Little Rock when she got married in 2007. She volunteered and worked at a variety of places and positions in Little Rock, such as office management for engineering firms.
She graduated from University of Arkansas Little Rock in May 2014 with a liberal arts degree that concentrated on business management, writing and history.
“When it says ‘program coordinator’ it really means it.”
Before graduating, Breen gained experience in “a little bit of everything” as an event organizer and planer.
Breen is “still learning a lot about my job description” as the program coordinator for ITRI, but she is certain her diverse experience will help her excel.
She works with Eric Bradford, the institute’s managing director, to “set up different arena’s to make all of that happen.”
“I have a pretty broad knowledge of a lot of different things, so it’s easier for me to understand where everybody else is coming from,” Breen says. “I understand the bottom line and how you need to organize.”
The ITRI is an outreach program that focuses on promoting student interest in the IT field, and facilitating the exchange of information between the academic and business communities and advanced research in the field of IT.
“We’re working with students, we’re working with faculty, we’re working with business people and they all have a different perspective,” Breen says. “But I’ve been in a lot of those different perspectives and had to work with all of that before, so I think it’s easier for me to come in and see that from all the different angles.”
