What time does your day start?

My day starts sometime between 7 and 8:30, depending on what’s going on, what’s happening.

You start early. Does that mean you are a native Iowan?

I am. Farm girl. I have a great husband, who if he gets home first, cooks. He’s very good. In fact, he talks about when he retires, going to cooking school, “just so I can cook for you.” We’re a very unique family. I live a half-mile from my parents, where I grew up, a mile from my in-laws; my brother lives a mile to the west of us, and my daughter lives a mile to the west of us. My grandkids can get off the bus at four different houses after school.

Do you still farm?

No. We live on an acreage. Mom and Dad had a hobby farm of 80 acres. My dad was an executive with the Iowa Limestone Producers Association. My mom raised hogs. She grew up on the East Side of Des Moines. She had never been on a farm before, but she could stay home and earn some money and build her retirement by raising hogs.

What did you do before you came to the Convention and Visitors Bureau?

I worked my way through college at Trail’s End Western store. I went to the owner of the store and said, what’s next for me? He said, “I would like to sell this business; would you like to buy it?” At the time I was 22, and I said “no.” I was very keen that in the retail industry that for every $1 you earned you worked an extra two hours. I knew at that point that sales was a forte for me. I could sense people. I also knew when shoplifters came in the store. I could nail them. My first year of management there, they had $30,000 less in loss than they had in thefts before. I grew this keen sense.

You didn’t go into law enforcement?

I did go back to (Des Moines Area Community College) because I thought I might want to go into business law. Then I decided I wanted to get pregnant, so I went to work with Merry Maids to get in shape because I was overweight.

That’s a big step from there to here.

My dad had a good friend who worked here. It was in the early ’80s, and Des Moines was going to host an event called Adapt 100 that was being put on by Successful Farming to bring farmers in from across the country to give them ways to have alternative crops and alternative products so they could diversify their farms. I was on that leading edge of what is now “farm to plate” that is so embraced in this community and across the country. This office coordinated the buses that picked up people so they could converge in Des Moines. That was my job. I did that one project … then I became a part-time registration assistant. I worked the first Iowa pork show. That first day was when the Challenger exploded.

What’s the key to being successful in your job?

That sixth sense still works. The other thing is relying on the people in the community. I’m a solution person. We have these great facilities, we’re in a great location, and we have all these hotels – we have double the hotel inventory of a lot of cities our size – but you have to keep those hotels full. After I became a full-time employee, the first call I made was to Bob Utter, and the gentleman that I knew as Bob Utter was the chairman of the Iowa Amateur Athletic Union. … I didn’t know that he was a vice president at  Principal Financial (Group Inc.). That was my first sales call. … From that conversation, I learned that there was this thing called the AAU Junior Olympic Games. I said, “Can we get that here?” He said, “Do you think we can?” I said, “Of course we can.” The first thing I went after probably was the biggest, the boldest thing. And now our community is still hosting it. From there I started to see how big sports were.

Are you a sports fanatic?

No. At dinner meetings, I only talk when the conversation gets off of sports.