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What is your company like?
LexisNexis is a leading global provider of information products and services for the legal, business, academic and government markets. It's a fast-paced work environment in very competitive and evolving markets. The people who work there are very motivated to be successful and win.

What do you do?
I'm responsible for managing global employee communications for LexisNexis.

How did you get your job?
It started with a lunch meeting with a business acquaintance I knew through the local chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. He told me of a possible position at LexisNexis. I contacted the hiring manager, sent her a resume and cover letter, went through the interview process and was hired.

What is your best professional lesson learned at the J-School?
It's probably not to accept things on face value, ask questions and be accurate. And for me, when it doubt, leave it out.

What is your favorite J-School memory?
Really three: Professor Taft's H&P journalism course; working on the Missourian and getting my first byline from Professor Tom Duffy for a review I wrote on a piano recital at Stephens College; and preparing and delivering the early morning (6:30 a.m.) news cast at KOMU-TV - especially the first time in the studio by myself with the camera remotely operated in tech control. It was a very lonely feeling - not to mention the nervousness of the moment.

What would be your best advice to current students?
Write well. Know your company or organization's business cold: its challenges, markets, financials, business objectives, competitors, etc. Be a good tactician, but think and act strategically. Base your actions on research. Share the credit and take responsibility for your actions.

What are you working on currently?
Implementing our employee brand ambassador program globally; taking our one-year-old global employee intranet to the next level of operation as a true portal; researching surveying employees to establish the basis for building the "Manager as Communicator" program to help managers be effective communicators with their employees. We are also expanding our intercultural communications training to more countries, editing the online employee newsletter and ghost writing the CEO column.

What do you consider to be your greatest professional achievement?
I had a 25-year career in the U.S. Air Force, but it was only at the 10- point that I went into the public affairs career field. I was in communications-electronic and missile operations before that. At my first base after becoming a public affairs officer I was the director of public affairs. We worked hard as a team there to improve the public affairs program internally and externally in all areas over three years and were pretty successful in doing so.

What makes you good at your job?
My education at the J-School, which taught me how to write well. Writing well is the basis for most everything you do. A strong work ethic, understanding the organization and the ability to get things done in it.

What are your next career steps?
I've never been a big career planner. My philosophy has always been to do the best job I possibly can in the current job and opportunities will present themselves. That doesn't have to be as passive as it sounds because you can always be on the lookout for good opportunities; but without taking care of business now, you won't be chosen for the opportunities. As far as for now, I'm concentrating within LexisNexis to improve our employee communications program as we continue to grow the business around the world. There are plenty of opportunities for professional growth in what I'm doing right now.

What did you want to be as a kid?
At one point, very early, I thought about being an engineer of some kind, but I really took an interest in journalism and writing about the eighth or ninth grade and didn't look back.