Gardian of the Month: Erin Rogers

Our Gardian of the Month is Erin Rogers, Membership and Operations Coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Section of American Water Works Association (RMSAWWA).

Learn: What's your favorite part about learning something new? 

Actually, everything!  I have always loved learning – whether it is through reading, watching, conversation or doing. 

Network: How might you help a wallflower, who's not comfortable networking at a professional event loosen up?

Since I tend to be a wallflower myself, I know how tricky it can be.  My main strategy (after grabbing a glass of wine!) is to have some questions in mind to ask people as I meet them.  I don’t necessarily think well on the fly, so prepping some general questions ahead of time is best for me.

Transfer: Tell us about an experience in which you learning something new and then applied it to your personal or professional life.

I love to learn new technologies. I’m specifically interested in anything can save time and make me more efficient. Over the past year, I’ve been learning a few more advanced features of Excel (luckily for me, I have a live-in tutor, my husband!). These lessons have been invaluable to my job – particularly when it comes to processing attendance at our conferences and events in order to issue professional credits. Since just about everything has been virtual, I have had to utilize and combine a variety of downloaded reports to compile the training certificates.  Without Excel functionality, these tasks would have taken so much longer.  Also, I learn best by repetition, so the fact that I’m using what I’ve learned on a regular basis ensures that what I’ve learned will stay with me.

Please share with us a resource and why you can’t live without it.

I love Evernote. I’ve been using it for many years and have all kinds of information stored there.  I can access it anywhere I am with my phone or computer, which makes it super useful. It’s hard to even summarize the information I have saved, because it’s so much and so varied. I keep work/personal task lists, my grocery list, meal plans, budget/bill info, important information (such as my car license plate or printer cartridge number – which I can never remember), travel information (handy to keep all in one place), notes from meetings, car maintenance info, wines I like, and so forth.  One of the most used notes I have is a packing list template.  I have a checklist with everything I could possibly need for any kind of trip.  When I have a trip coming up, I make a copy and modify it for what I’m doing - then refer to it as I’m packing.  It’s usually the last thing I check before I leave.  It’s saved me from missing things so many times!

Just for Fun: If you were writing a book about your life, what would the title be and why?

Pick Your Battles and Live a Happier Life!  One of the most important things I learned in my life is to always ask myself….in the big picture, is this worth getting upset, angry, or worried about?  Most things really are not. I’ve learned to let so many things go and just live a calmer, happier life with very little drama. Some people seem to attract drama, negativity and stress.  I make it a choice to not spend a lot of my time with these people.  Choose wisely who you surround yourself with and your life will be more enjoyable.