SSG Katie Ferencik is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, currently working as an Army Reservist. She also competed and won at the Arabian Sport Horse National Championships in North Carolina. Katie will discuss her time as a female in the U.S. Army and how she unexpectedly adopted 2 young girls that changed her entire life.
LinkedIn: Katie Ferencik
Katie Ferencik Bio:
I love chaos – it’s an opportunity to create order! You see, problem solving is what I LIVE for, and to show just how much it means to me, I once rapped Vanilla Ice’s “If you got a problem, YO! I’ll solve it!” in an interview with four Executives and an HR rep (which I was subsequently hired for because they know commitment when they see it).
In 2020, I transferred from Computer Information Systems to Information Science and Technology at UArizona, where I met and fell in love with Data Science and the R programming language!
Prior to this, I've had a long and wonderful career in multiple fields, earning a wide range of knowledge and broad skill set to match. I’ve worked in the Energy sector and for the Army as a Technology Scout, researching new and emerging innovations for, taught myself web design about a decade ago when I spent obscene amounts of time in downtown Las Vegas and have gone from making fun of Squarespace and Wix to using them primarily for my clients.
People say I’m pretty funny, but really, it’s just that I love to laugh and share in the joy of others in nearly every moment of every day. Humor is vital to my life, as is excellent communication and holding firm to a set of values to guide me. I know it’s cliché, but it’s true that team synergy, a group that cares about and roots for each other both inside and outside of the office is what I’m looking for. I’m not interested in climbing a ladder unless I’m doing it with my team.
My husband and I unexpectedly fostered and adopted two young girls, and in that time, I’ve found that flexibility and putting them first is paramount to living a balanced life. I tend to incorporate my career into my life rather than having it be two separate things, and this seems to work really well because I do my best work in cycles.
I’m all about the results-oriented workflow which frees me up to use my time wisely. I can be very intense so have become good at knowing when I need to take a break and when I can harness the power, so whether it’s 3AM or 11PM, I’m meeting deadlines with excellent, high quality work.
I’ve been to War twice but deployed three times, won a National Championship (and everything else I competed in) as a professional athlete for the U.S. Army and was once asked to try out for the Army Marksmanship Team because I’m also a crack shot. I have been Time Magazine’s Person of the Year - twice, in fact - once in 2003, and then again in 2006, and I’m not above using emojis alongside the written word. I also volunteer much of my time and am a firm believer I was meant to serve.
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