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Can you describe your current role and the path that led you there?

I'm the Marketing Analytics Director at NewRez, one of the nation's largest non-bank mortgage originators and servicers. While this role is my first in mortgage, I've been working in analytics for nearly 15 years extracting insights about human behavior from complex data inputs. After earning my bachelor's and master's in economics at UNT, I did some postgraduate work at Michigan State University in their economics doctoral program. After a year and some time working as an adjunct professor at Lansing Community College, I decided academia was not my primary interest and made the jump to a public-private entity, Michigan Economic Development Corporation, where my first assignment was to translate tax legislation into formulas for tax abatement forecasting. I discovered errors in how the calculations were written and got to work with state officials to pass another round of legislation correcting these technical errors. In addition, the work I did in tax abatement forecasting was used across the state in news media, and I got a sense of how powerful quantitative insights can be. After a couple years, I moved back to the DFW area and worked in a variety of industries, including real estate, telecom, manufacturing, and insurance. While the industries changed, the fundamental tools I used did not. I continued to model problems quantitatively and identify actionable insights for business leaders to make critical decisions. I also took on the additional responsibility of managing teams - the largest being over 40 researchers and managers. Becoming a manager allowed me to discover one of my favorite things - mentoring and developing talent to help people pause and look up from their work to take a look at the bigger picture and navigate their career path from this larger view. 

How did your degree from UNT Economics contribute to your career development?

Economics has fueled my ability to creatively solve complex, technical problems. At its core, economics measures systems and how different parts of systems are impacted by one or multiple variables. That fundamental understanding allows me to take a global view of the problems at hand, potential impacts, and systemic solutions to the problem, and working from this perspective allows me to be a strong critical thinker. Regardless of who I was competing against in the labor market and their credentials, I knew that often times my background in economics gave me the upper hand in critical thinking, which is a highly valued skill for hiring managers. Being able to be a technical generalist, think logically, and connect the dots made the difference in being hired and ultimately earning my way up the corporate ladder. 

What did you most enjoy about your time studying economics at UNT?

My favorite thing about studying economics at UNT was access to a tremendously knowledgeable staff with competencies across a wide range of economics topics. From my perspective, economics is the underlying mechanics of much of the human behavior we observe, and understanding not just the theory, but the psychology and humans behind the theory allowed me to make deeper connections with the classes I was taking. Some of my favorite classes I took at UNT were Urban Economics, Labor Economics, and Econometrics. Because those courses balanced theory with applications, I was fascinated by the creative ways economics was applied to seemingly unrelated problems to extract insights that could be incorporated into public policy or business. 

Do you have any advice for someone considering an Economics degree at UNT? What advice would you give to current and prospective students who are considering a similar career path?

The advice I would give a prospective student is the same advice I would have given myself if I could go back in time - network, network, network. Your grades and work will never stand alone whether you're in the classroom or the boardroom. It's the combination of your output combined with your ability to form relationships with people that will take you the furthest. So take the time to show up and raise your hand, even if it seems unrelated to your major or career that you're interested in. You never know what you're going to learn or be able to apply later or more importantly, who you're going to meet and one day cross paths with again.