It's been a bit crazy this past year, as anyone that bothers to read posts around these parts probably surmised. Over the course of these last 15 months, I presented at the CUPA-HR National Conference (2016), got a new boss, saw my role grow and expand in cool ways, had a proposal accepted for the CUPA-HR National Conference (2017), was asked to be a part of the CUPA-HR Emerging Association Leaders Program (and the National Research Advisory Committee), was invited to speak at the CUPA-HR Higher Education Symposium (2018) with the awesome Jackie Bischel (Head of Research at CUPA-HR), lost said new boss, and made the decision to pursue new opportunities outside the University of Missouri.

That last one's a bit of a mic drop... while I made the decision to actively pursue a new role around the beginning of the fiscal year after 12 months of learning experiences, nose deep work in HR transformation efforts, and amazing mentorship and advice from current and former leaders I've had the pleasure of working for, I started the search for the next stop on my career journey after 11 years and 7 promotions and the very best performance review of my career (and I've had some good ones) at the University of Missouri, I officially left at the end of September.

This was made easier by the fact that I was fortunate to immediately begin doing some consulting work as an "organizational sherpa" for an R-1 AAU institution and the fact that my 90 mile twice a day commute from home to office vanished overnight. I'm splitting my time being on the road and working from home, I'm more present in all things and while the idea of a work/life balance may not be wholly possible for anyone I'm a lot closer to it now than I've been in over five years and it's great and just the thing I needed as I actively pursue my next career challenge with a world-class higher education institution, one where I can bring my decades of knowledge to the table as well as learn and grow and positively affect the good work their HR team is already doing - building strategic HR value for today, tomorrow, and beyond (just a lot closer to "home," whether that's where we are now or post-relocation). 2017 has been a year of change for me professionally and personally (guess what, I went fully vegan) and I'm looking forward to what else it has in store and what 2018 brings!