Meet Christina

Christina was born and raised in Yuma, Arizona. While still in high school, she learned about NAU-Yuma through Arizona Western College (AWC) in Yuma where she was taking English classes.  Christina applied to NAU and was awarded a Lumberjack Scholarship. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree through a combination of taking classes at the NAU Flagstaff campus, at the NAU-Yuma campus, and online.

NAU’s Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) Degree

Christina said she started thinking about her major when she was a freshman in high school. She did extensive research on what she wanted to study after high school graduation and narrowed it down to business and specifically marketing. Christina knew she wanted to have a well-rounded education that she could apply anywhere and that’s why a degree in business with an emphasis in marketing made sense.

When asked what advice she could offer students who are considering the NAU BBA program, Christina said, “The best advice I have, not just for the BBA program but for any program, is to get to know your professors.” One of Christina’s professors, Dr. Frank Kidd, wrote a recommendation letter for her that helped her land the job that she now has as a sales coordinator for the Monterey County Convention & Visitors Bureau (MCCVB).

Dr. Kidd truly inspired her. Christina stated, “I really liked his philosophy on teaching the best.”  He believed in hands-on work and in-class discussions rather than the usual quizzes or tests and he liked to see the whole class work together as a team to achieve one goal. Dr. Kidd was also a great mentor to her and was always more than willing to share his knowledge with his students.

Christina said that her degree has helped her immensely in her new position. She used tips from her computer information systems classes, marketing classes, and even her strategic management class. She said, “Sometimes the smallest tips make the most impact.” As examples, building her LinkedIn profile for networking purposes and using Excel to organize pending business leads has helped her tremendously.

While Christina was pursuing her degree, she had several part-time jobs.  The most impactful to her at the time was her job at the Yuma Sun Newspaper. She started working as a customer service representative and later was promoted.  She then transferred to the classified department as a classified sales executive. She stated, “That job helped me get the job I currently have!”

Christina’s Journey After Graduation

Christina currently works in the beautiful city of Monterey, California, as a sales coordinator for the MCCVB.  She said, “I can honestly say I love my job!”  Christina always wanted to move to California and since her family and boyfriend worked in agriculture and spent a large part of the year in Salinas, California, relocating to Monterey after graduation to be closer to them made perfect sense.

After graduation, Christina applied for several jobs including part-time jobs; however, nothing panned out for her. She decided to take a leap of faith and with no job lined up, she packed her bags and moved to California. She stayed with family and within two weeks living in Monterey, she received an email from the MCCVB. She had initially applied for an administrative coordinator position, but was offered the sales coordinator role instead because it just became available and the position was a better fit with her degree and experience. She stated, “I was ecstatic to be offered this position and to this day it is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I am beyond grateful for this opportunity.”

Searching for a job out of state can be challenging. Christina conducted her job search online by looking at multiple websites daily and signing up for multiple newsletters. She would check for new openings and constantly worked on improving her resume and cover letter. She tailored her cover letter to the job she was applying for. Christina stated, “I looked everywhere and checked every day.”

LinkedIn is another resource that Christina used for her job search. In her digital marketing course, Christina mentioned, “Dr. Paige Leister gave us such great pointers on how to improve our LinkedIn profiles” and Christina said she still uses those tips quite a bit today.  “It was through LinkedIn that I learned about my current job. It is honestly a great tool for both applying for jobs and networking afterwards.”

A Typical Work Day

As a sales coordinator, Christina has plenty of job responsibilities and every day is different. She likes to think of herself as the assistant to all the sales executives.  MCCVB has multiple regional sales executives (RSEs) in different regions of the United States. They also have one tour and leisure travel sales executive. The RSEs focus on group sales, that is meetings, conferences, retreats, etc., and the tour and travel sales executives deal with a lot of international business.  Her job is to help them be successful. The job of the sales team is to sell their location and ensure that businesses come to Monterey County.

Specifically, her responsibilities include communicating with hotels to receive booking confirmations to secure catering for certain events and even determining the logistics to get travel agents from China to Monterey. The MCCVB works very closely with Visit California and ultimately wants the whole world to know that Monterey is here, and they want their business. “Heads in beds is what we like to say” she said.  Ultimately, tourism provides more jobs for more people and makes a huge economic impact for the county. “My job is a lot of hard work, but it is also a lot of fun. I get to go to restaurant grand openings and to wine tasting rooms as part of my job.”

Into the Future

In the next five years, Christina continues to see herself in sales for the hospitality industry. She would love to still be working with the MCCVB because it is truly a wonderful place to work and has a great management team. She hopes to climb the career ladder and work as a sales executive for the MCCVB or possibly for a different organization like Visit California. She can also see herself as a sales manager for a hotel in the future.

“A lot can happen in five years and I do not know where life will take me, but I plan to work hard and hopefully achieve greater things in the future. As cliché as this sounds…this is just the beginning.”

Congratulations, Christina on your career success and on being our featured NAU Department of Business & Administration alumna.