URMIA's YoPros

Tune into this episode of URMIA Matters to hear all about URMIA’s newest community, the YoPros! Host Julie Groves, Director of Risk Services at Wake Forest University, interviews the YoPro community leaders, Michelle Powell, Risk Manager at Florida Polytechnic University, and Kate Miller, Risk Management Analyst at Christopher Newport University, about lessons learned and helpful resources into their new(ish) journey in higher education risk management. Kate and Michelle share their success stories, their learning experiences, and approaches for tackling challenges on campus. Whether you’re a young professional, new to the profession, or just young at heart, don’t miss this episode all about URMIA’s YoPros!

Show Notes
www.chronicle.com
www.insidehighered.com
URMIAs Specialized Communities

Guests
Kate Miller, Risk Management Analyst - Christopher Newport University
Michelle Powell, Risk Manager - Florida Polytechnic University

Host
Julie Groves, Director, Risk Services - Wake Forest University

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Transcript

Jenny Whittington: Hey there. Thanks for tuning in to URMIA Matters, a podcast about higher education, risk management, and insurance. Let's get to it. 

Julie Groves: Hi everyone, I'm Julie Groves, Director of Risk Services at Wake Forest University and I'll be your host for this episode of URMIA Matters. Today I'll be chatting with Michelle Powell from Florida Polytechnic University and Kate Miller from Christopher Newport University about being relatively new higher ed risk managers. And we're going to talk about their backgrounds and experiences and we're going to hear what they're doing in their current roles. And they're also going to share some info with us on URMIA’s newest community, the young professionals or as the cool kids call it, the YoPros, and they're going to talk about how they plan to help connect younger risk managers with one another and resources. So good to see you all, welcome to the podcast. Why don't we do some introductions? So, Michelle, why don't you tell us a bit about your background and what you're responsible for in your role. 

Michelle Powell: Yeah, sure. Happy to. Thanks for having me today, Julie. So, in my position as risk manager at the university, I am a department of one. So, I oversee everything and anything even remotely close to risk management. So that includes all of our university insurances trying to make sure that we have documented policies and procedures. So, reviewing some of those, providing suggestions and feedback as well, and really a lot of what I do is ask questions because we've never had a risk management department before. So, my job has been where do we need risk management? Where are some potential issues that could be coming up and that's where I step in and take the reins and try to help the campus community. But in my background, I've been at the university for almost 10 years, so it'll be 10 years this upcoming March, but I've only been risk manager for about 13 months. So, prior to that time I worked in our Office of Admissions. Previously serving as our Director of Admissions and so made the change over to risk management and haven’t looked back since. It's been wonderful and I'm excited to get to talk with everyone today. 

Julie Groves: Great. Well, that's quite a change. So, did they identify it as a gap? I mean, how did it come about that they needed to have your position? 

Michelle Powell: Yeah, that's a great question. So, we have a relatively new CFO. So, he started about 2 1/2, maybe three years ago, and since he came to the institution, he really saw the value in establishing risk management, but wanted to find someone internal. Didn't want to bring a traditional risk manager into the role and try to make the university fit. He wanted to find someone that knew the university to could help from the inside out pretty much. And it just happened to work out that I let it known that I was looking for other positions within the university. And he said, “You know what? Hey, I've got an idea. You want to start a whole new department?” Well, I told him, I said “I don't know anything about it, but I'm happy to learn.” And so, it ended up just working out perfectly, I think for the university, but also for me as well. 

Julie Groves: Well, great. Well, congratulations on your new job, well new-ish job. 

Michelle Powell: Thank you. 

Julie Groves: So, Kate, so tell us a little bit about yourself and what you're doing, what you're doing in your current role?  

Kate Miller: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, thank you for having me as well. So, I am new to the higher ed side. I kind of came from the private end of things. I worked for two large companies that everybody's pretty familiar with for auto and homeowners’ insurance. I came from negotiating bodily injury negotiations with attorneys. And I decided that I was kind of over the call center situation and I wanted to do something different. I saw that Christopher Newport was hiring and being from the area I knew of the college. My mom worked across the street at the hospital for 30 years. And I was born at the hospital. So, I was like, hey, well, might as well try it. My position is brand new. I have been here just under 10 months; it'll be 10 months on the 30th. But because the vice president, who had the position previously for my department, I'm a part of the Environmental Health and Safety Department, had been begging for somebody to be able to handle claims. I'm the risk management analyst there. So, I'm handling all of the claims and anything that comes under risk management and we're kind of exploring where that's going. Because we don't have an ERM situation. So that's kind of where we're playing into it. No one in my department other than myself has any experience in risk, other than being in the health and safety side for OSHA standards. So, it's been a fun learning curve and experience with everyone.  

Julie Groves: Wow, that's great. Congratulations to you as well. So, let's talk a little bit about your institutions. So, Michelle, you're at Florida Polytechnic. And Kate, you're at Christopher Newport. So, Kate, why don't you tell us a little bit about your institute? 

Kate Miller: Sure. So, mine is a four-year college that started off as an offshoot of William and Mary. So, we're liberal arts, about four thousand students. They are still trying to grow their brands. They have not been around very long, maybe probably in the last like 15 to 20 years, they've actually started establishing themselves as a separate entity. We just got our 2nd President ever. Paul Tribble had been the president for about twenty plus years. And so, we're having all the redesign and rescoping of everybody's stuff now that we have a new president. So, it's kind of an interesting time at the university to see what we're building up and what we're building to. 

Julie Groves: Great. And Michelle, tell us a little bit about your institute. 

Michelle Powell: Yeah. So, I'm going to refer to it as Florida Poly for short, because Florida Polytechnic University is quite a mouthful to say again and again, but Florida Poly is a State University here in the state of Florida. We are the newest state university in that we've only been around 10 years similar to Christopher Newport, we are also on our 2nd President, but we are a STEM focused institution. So, 100% of our majors are science, technology, engineering, or mathematics related. We're currently about 1700 students between our undergraduate and graduate program. But we're going to be growing pretty aggressively in terms of our staffing as well as our students and research. And just everything that goes along with being a STEM university. So, over the next five years, we'll probably be at about three thousand students, which means there are gonna be a lot of opportunities for me to be involved in some conversations to make sure that we're taking into consideration everything that we need to. But we're located in Central Florida, right, between Tampa and Orlando. So, it's a really great location for STEM and it's a great place to be. 

Julie Groves: Well, great that you're so it sounds like you are both at newer-ish schools and you're newer-ish in your position. So let me just ask you this. When you were growing up, what did you want to be like? What did you want to be, Kate? Did you want to, like, work for a risk management company? Did you want to work for an insurance company? 

Kate Miller: I don't think anybody grows things like I want to be an insurance. Truly it kind of came out to, you know, job market. It was not the greatest. And what can I find that will pay the bills? Because student loans. That's how I ended up in insurance. What did I really want to do when I was a child? I mean, I feel like it's every kid that wants to either be a vet or an attorney like those are the kind of the two, and that's kind of what was going around. And then I saw the bills for those for student loans. So, I was like, maybe not, maybe not that. 

Julie Groves: Yeah. Yeah. And what about you, Michelle? I mean, you obviously you were in admissions first. So, did you want to be an admissions counselor, when you grew up or what? 

Michelle Powell: No, so, I always wanted to be a teacher growing up. That's actually my, I ended up going for my undergraduate degree in mathematics and I'm a certified teacher in Illinois, but also in Florida. I grew up in Illinois and that's what I thought I would do. And then I moved to Florida and within a few months found out about the university. And I thought, you know what? We could do admissions. I worked at admissions when I was in college. Like I could do this, and sure enough, left teaching and haven't looked back. 

Julie Groves: Well, to your point, Kate, I don't always ask this question, but I do often ask this question when I'm doing this podcast, and I don't think anyone has ever said they wanted to be in risk management when they grew up. So, I'm waiting for the day, waiting for the day that somebody actually says that. 

Kate Miller: Maybe if you can like if you can get people in on the fraud bit because working, I did do the SIU investigative side of it so that can be fun. I have a history of like, people lining a racetrack with deer carcasses to be able to race, since it's excluded on policies, so that's kind of interesting. I don't know how many people go for it, but. 

Julie Groves: Well, and you know, risk management is becoming a much more robust industry. There are a lot more programs at universities for risk management. And so, I think, if I keep doing this, you know, cause I'm only twenty-five, so if I keep doing this like 60-70 more years eventually, maybe somebody will say yes. Well, I knew I always knew I wanted to be a risk manager, so we'll see. We'll try to have a prize for that person. OK. So, as we've already mentioned, you were kind of newish in your roles. I mean, Kate, you were working already in the industry a little bit. And Michelle, you came from a totally different area. So why don't you, Michelle? Tell us what was it like transitioning from admissions, something you've been doing for so long and you're very comfortable with, into this different role that you say, you know, I'm just quoting you that you didn't really know anything about? 

Michelle Powell: Yeah, it was a bit of a whirlwind. I went from a very high pace, fast type of environment, always goal driven. You're always working towards the next, you know enrollment deadline to a position where because it was new, I got to take a step back and just survey the campus and really just look around and try to identify where our issues are benchmarking with other universities. What are they doing at the very basic for risk management? What is it that they are doing? And we're not doing that. So, let's set it up. And as I did more of that and did more looking around and asking questions and found great resources with URMIA, but also my state university colleagues, that's when I realized I actually do know about risk management. I just never knew that's what it was. I had put in practices and procedures within my department, so that my student employees knew what to do in case something happened, or my staff knew what to do and when they were traveling. And all of these different things. Now to realize there are universities that have this standard across their organization and as a new institution, we just didn't do that.  

We were growing so quickly and so that actually helped me to feel more comfortable in my role. to say, you know what, we're OK. We've got some things we need to do. We need to make sure everyone knows how to report an accident if it happens on campus, you know, certain things like that. What to do if they're in an accident as an employee, how they need to connect with workers compensation and HR and all that stuff. So, it helped me just kind of looking at things really have a better understanding of where I was and it wasn't as overwhelming as I thought it would be, but I'm still learning. I mean, 13 months isn't enough time to know everything because this fall we had hurricane damage and so now is my first chance getting to go through not only our insurance claims process, but also with FEMA and I'm the contact that's handling all of that, so I can't really say I'm new anymore to the role at work, but there are still new things happening that I haven't encounter. So, I'm still learning every day. 

Julie Groves: And so, since it's a new area, have you found that people are have been pretty receptive to you or are they resentful that there's now somebody at in a risk management department that wants to kind of get into their business? I mean, what have, how have people responded to your role? 

Michelle Powell: I think it's been mixed. There have been some individuals that I worked very closely with in my previous role and so they know me, they know how I operate. I've never been a person to walk around placing blame. It's always been what's the issue. Let's fix it and let's move forward and prevent it. So having that kind of as a reputation serves me very well with certain individuals. I also think it just worked out perfectly that we had a new president come in. We also had some new university leadership changes and so those individuals being new was a great opportunity for myself and the CFO to get in front of them and really say, hey, look at risk management, we're here to support. And so, some of the people that gave me some pushback and there are some funny stories that have come with that pushback, but for them I just started showing them the little wins and the ways that I was just able to help them and have really approached it as an internal consultant.  

I'm not here to say no, I'm here to say yes, but here are some things we need to talk about. Just like the e-mail this morning I got about constructing our own rock wall on campus. And what my input would be on that idea and so first I was a little like, oh, why would we consider that? But also, I felt proud that they reached out to me. So instead of getting to the point where they're actually, you know, procuring a contractor or whoever to build it, they're coming to me preemptively, so I think building that on the relationships I previously had has helped me get to this point where people are bringing those concerns to me and I think that that has done really well and kind of dispelling the people that just see it as another exercise or why should we talk to her? She's just going to tell us no, and I think that's been helpful. 

Julie Groves: Well, that's good that they did reach out to you before they did it. Because you know, a lot of places you'd walk by and they'd already have the rock wheel wall built and they wouldn't even told you about it, so that's a positive. So, Kate, you are on the industry side and now you're at an institution. So how has that transition been? Has anything been surprising to you about that? 

Kate Miller: Yes. Quickest and easiest way- yes. So being a state school, we are self-insured in Virginia being on the industry side, I'm like OK, I know you can self-insure in general for auto, everything along those lines. When I started asking questions and I was getting onboarded and I was like hey, is there any way that I can talk to somebody in Richmond or capital and be like hey, you know what's the process for claims? Because when I was coming in there had been a claim that we had the two-year statute on, and it happened obviously a year before I came on, so I was needing to get that taken care of as quickly as possible. Mind you, it's about a $300,000 claim because we had multiple pipes burst over our winter freeze. I came to find out that no institution in the state has any sort of onboarding with that. It's just here's the claims document that we asked you to fill out. However you send it to us, good luck. So, I'm in the process of trying to get together as far as my institution is concerned and what requirements we're needing and the feedback that I'm getting from submitting that claim and the process of dealing with another one that happened right before I came on literally like 2 weeks. 

So, we're just kind of getting in the process of that, as well as having the conversations with the different departments of this is the expectation they were so used to, the vice president, who had been handling it as an extra thing, so she normally wasn't as thorough. Where I'm like, hey, if you tell me all the things, I can get us money back, that's what I wanna do. My end goal is to get as much money back for us as possible. And I can't do that if you don't help me. So, it's having that conversation and educating the different departments. That's kind of a struggle just because they're like, well, who's this person? I don't even know who this is and why are they calling me from environmental health and safety? Because generally, most people don't think that that's gonna be money coming in on that end. 

Julie Groves: And how many people are in the environmental health and safety area total? 

Kate Miller: Including myself, four. 

Julie Groves: OK. And then are you the only person that, you may have said this, that does risk management, or do they help you with that some? 

Kate Miller: I am the only person for risk management. My supervisor knows OSHA, knows those, she's trying to learn risk management. But as everyone knows, it's kind of a wealth of things. As Michelle is learning, you will never know everything. And if you do, sorry, I hate to break it to you, but you don't. You're always going to be learning consistently, and things are gonna change between legislation and everything along those lines. You're never going to have the full book of everything that happens. So, and then my other two counterparts are more so for compliance and the lab safety and fire safety and things along those lines. So yeah, I'm. I'm a one-man band here for all risk management for CNU. 

Julie Groves: Well, just in case you don't know and maybe you do, and if you do, if you are already a member, great. But you know we have a special community for Solo Risk Managers through URMIA. So hopefully you all are members of that, and we'll get to your young professionals’ community in a minute. So, Kate, you said one of the challenges has been, you know like no on boarding for certain things. And that it sounds like the people who, the person who was doing it for before you wasn't necessarily not doing what she was supposed to do. She just had a lot of other things that were going on,  

Kate Miller: Correct. Yeah.  

Julie Groves: So, have there been any other challenges or surprises for you coming from an industry?  

Kate Miller: I can't really say that it's just, I think, more so, the sticker shock, especially with that one claim. There's about 5 buildings that were impacted and about $300,000 and I'm used to seeing some of the bigger bills, you know, helicopter, nightingales, 50 grand, like I'm expecting that. I'm not expecting us to have full HVAC units having to be done and things along those lines because one pipe burst during our winter storm and having that as my first task to complete is kind of daunting. Along with trying to gather all the bills and receipts from my business office and, you know, begging and pleading with all the different departments just because they're not used to it. So that was kind of eye-opening. Also, just seeing a petting zoo on campus and not having any idea that it was happening before. Yeah. 

Julie Groves: Oh, we've had that happen. 

Kate Miller: I was like. Oh, OK. So, we're in the process of trying to talk with our, you know, student affairs. Things along those lines, so we can make sure that we're all on the same page. We may not necessarily all agree with everything and that's fine, but at least getting into those conversations and being able to have a seat at the table there. 

Julie Groves: And Michelle, have you had any particular challenges or surprises from moving from admissions over to where you are now? 

Michelle Powell: There's always a new surprise. We feel like we’re a small campus and I thankfully have an office that's kind of in their main academic student hub currently and I have seen so many Flyers pop up of activities that are coming up that I didn't know about. So mechanical bull, people texting me photos of a rock-climbing wall just sitting on campus unattended. There's just a number of them. And so, it's been, it’s just been fun learning about those and then realizing, OK, well, the event has happened. Nothing I can do right now. How did it happen and how can we prevent it? And thankfully, I have a wonderful colleague in our event services, and he loops me in. He completely revamped the entire event process for RSOs and other campus groups and external entities, so that they have to tell him everything they're bringing to campus.  

And then that way he can tell me, hey, they're bringing a vendor for this, or they're wanting to bring entertainment devices. And so that has helped a little bit. They're still some that just get through the cracks, like a week before an event group decides they want to serve liquor on campus. Well, our policy says no liquor, only wine and beer. And so, then it's having a conversation about, well, you can't do that. But also, it didn't follow the policy because there's whole., there's a whole process of approval and things you need to do and so it's never a dull moment, though. And like Kate mentioned, if you think you know everything about risk management, you don't because there's always gonna be a scenario that will pop up and you'll wonder to yourself kind of, how did we get here and let's fix it. How do we prevent something bad from going wrong? 

Julie Groves: So, you both I think have mentioned that you have used URMIA for some resources to help you out. Are there other good resources that you could recommend for people who might you know be newer to their jobs? You know that you think have been particularly helpful, either one of you have an idea about? 

Kate Miller: Yeah. So, I personally am taking courses through the state they've partnered up with VCU, and they offer risk management process that is completely free as long as you have a certain grade point average for the class. So, it meets like twice. So, it's back-to-back and then you get a little certificate after you've gone through four different courses. So, there's a risk management track and a risk control track. So that was something that was brought to my attention by my supervisor and then kind of looked into it more, but I would definitely say talk to your colleagues, whether that be private or public and see what is offered. The worst that they can say is no, that's my thought process and then when we were talking to Caitlin, Kai, and YoPro, she mentioned that there is the scholarship for CPCU. So that's something that I'm also looking into as well. 

Julie Groves: Right. Any resources have been helpful to you, Michelle? 

Michelle Powell: Yeah, I've been really fortunate. The CFO's really been generous with saying, hey, find some opportunities and let's talk about them and let's pursue it. So, the university, so Florida Poly has free access for employees to Coursera. So, I initially started with a couple of just general risk management trainings through that and then from there got involved with the Institute. I did my ARM and that was great. I also spent some time researching ERM, because that's something that the CFO feels very strongly about. And so, I did some online trainings and online certification class for COSO ERM certification. So, I did that and that was a great learning experience. And then I've just tried to hop into as many webinars as I can whether they are URMIA, RIMS, any kind of vendor, even that has anything remotely interesting or related to my position potentially, I hop on it because I just wanna learn it all and that has been really helpful to get some conversations started. 

And one of the things that I do daily is I just look up news articles, that's been something that's been helpful for me and I share them with other departments. So, there was a huge concern with donor gifts in the state of Florida. You're not familiar, you probably just Google that and you'll see a whole bunch about it, but that was something that I stayed on top of and read all about it and shared that with parties on campus to say, hey, not inserting myself here, but just take a look at this. Let's make sure we're doing what we need to do and have used those different opportunities to kind of learn for some potential near misses for us in the future. Hopefully not misses, but have used that as well to just kind of know what's going on in the world and what do we need to be aware of. 

Julie Groves: Yeah, I generally look at the Chronicle of Higher Education in the morning and also Inside higher Ed. Those are good ways to keep, you know, keep tabs on what's going on. And I also think the great thing, one of the things about COVID is, I mean, I think before COVID, there were always a lot of virtual offerings. But it seems like since COVID people have become so much more comfortable doing things online and so I think that, you know, it's a positive outcome maybe of that whole strange time is that people are- there are a lot more things that are available for us virtually, which is great. So, let's talk about the YoPros. So, tell me about how that came about. Whose idea was that and how did it sort of come to fruition? 

Kate Miller: It's my understanding that it was Olivia Watson's idea. She talked to Teresa about a gap as far as being able to move into leadership for URMIA and getting to have one-on-one time with URMIA staff and leadership. So that was kind of where it came from. And then I thought that we were just volunteering for the group, and they said surprise, you’re leadership now. So, we've kind of been thrown into the deep end. Which I appreciate just because we're seeing kind of how everything works with URMIA. I know that for me it was a purchase that we made because I basically begged my supervisor. I was like, hey, can we get anything for me, so, I have a resource. Actually, when I was doing research for my interview, I found URMIA and I was like, why don't we start looking at this and seeing kind of what this scenario is? And then I talked to a fellow colleague, Kristen Fagan, and she completely supported URMIA, and said that was one of the best resources that she's found. So, I will say that being able to have somebody, kind of a safe space with the YoPro team, because either we're newer to the position newer to academia, or just higher ed general. It's nice to be able to say, OK, this is what I experienced. What did you experience and how do we either make it better or get to where we need to get out of this situation so. 

Julie Groves: What are the requirements for being in a YoPro? 

Michelle Powell: I think just interest, yeah, we talked about that going, using the abbreviated YoPro because it can be anyone that's young to the position. So new to being a risk manager, new to the field or to a new organization or university. You know, really, it could be anyone that's looking for that support, you know, within their position. So, I think it's really anybody that's interested in connecting in this manner. I think it's a great fit. 

Julie Groves: So, has it been pretty active thus far? I mean, what kind of things have been going on? 

Kate Miller: So, we had, Michelle and I did a quick almost water cooler-esque community vibe where we were talking about same subject. It was a little bit of Vegas though, it wasn't recorded, so everybody was able to kind of have their conversations ask questions, so that way it was again safe space Vegas, where everybody can say what they need to and not be looked at as, well, you're in this position, why don't you know? Because I feel like that sometimes happens when you're on campus. It's this campus is established. So, why don't you already have it together? And sometimes that can be intimidating, so it's nice to be able to have that. We have talked about eventually allowing affiliates in, but at this time affiliates are not allowed in just, so that way it is not a breeding ground to be able to sell. It is more so, this is a community where you can come together, ask questions, get answers, and not have to worry about the hard sell on anything. 

Julie Groves: Yeah, well, that sounds great. I mean, I also am a solo risk manager, and I think URMIA’s resources have just really been phenomenal because I don't know that I would be able to do my job as effectively if it hadn't been for them. So, you know, anything you can do, I think to create these affinity groups where people can to your point, have a safe space to talk about things that they're working on or you know, just have other people that are in similar positions, have them be a sounding board. I think those opportunities are really great. So, what are you both looking forward to about this Community, Michelle, do you have any thoughts about that? 

Michelle Powell: Well, I've used URMIA countless times looking through the library and all of the resources that are available there. And so, I'm most interested in YoPro to really find those connections with other individuals in those similar situations as I'm in, like Kate mentioned, people expect you to know everything. And so being able to realize like you're not the only one, but we're not here to just stew in our misery. We're here to say, OK, we're in a similar situation. How did you handle it? And maybe they did something different that works, or maybe they can say, you know what I did this, and it did not work, so do not follow what I did. And so that's really what I'm looking forward to is to meeting those people that I can get on a call with, if I have a question to talk through something, get some input from them. I think that that is going to be very valuable, so people feel supported and when they are feeling that pressure of, I'm supposed to know everything, they have someone that can help them build that confidence. So eventually you know, they'll answer questions with 100% confidence and know what they're doing for the most part, except when those weird scenarios come up, but at least hopefully be able to handle those situations well. 

Julie Groves: Is there anything you're excited about with this community, Kate? 

Kate Miller: Yeah, I think it's just really nice to be able to network, especially with, you know, just being here for 10 months, a little over a little under. After being able to see who else is in the group, again what Michelle was kind of going into is what did you do? OK, well, I can learn from my mistake. Can you learn from mine and kind of go from there? Because it really is, you don't know until you're in it and then you gotta find a way out of it. So, and go from there and that's kind of what I think a lot of us are going through as far as younger to or newer to the position is just finding your footing. You can't really get good at anything until six months to a year. But when targets are moving constantly in risk management, it's kind of like, OK, well, there's nothing really established. You can't establish certain ways of doing things. But when you have just a random thing pop off, it's a one off and maybe somebody in Colorado knows something more so than me in Virginia. And maybe Michelle knows something in Florida that I don't know and go from there. 

Julie Groves: Well, I first heard about it at the YoPro community in New Orleans, and I just thought it was a really great idea. And, you know, I actually made a joke and said that we should have a geriatrics risk managers, professional risk managers, we would call it GoPro. So how I don't know how that would take off. 

Kate Miller: Like trademark might be a little bit of an issue. But you know. 

Julie Groves: Yes. And so, kudos to you for coming up with that, because I do think that's really how you learn more through shared experience, right? And so, I think that will be great and I hope it just, you know, continues to take off and do well, I'm sure it will. So, before we wrap up, I wanted to see if either of you have any advice that you would offer to new risk managers or people who are thinking about becoming a risk manager. Michelle, you want to start? 

Michelle Powell: Sure. My biggest advice for it's something that's been helpful for me and I think has allowed me to be successful in the position is asking questions. Never just taking something at face value. Why? How did we do it before? What do you know? Just keep asking questions. But what's even more important than asking the questions is making sure that you're asking them and in an appropriate manner, you're building the rapport so that when you do ask, well, why do we do that? It's not taken as well, why do you do that? It's well received, and you've built the relationship, so they understand you're asking the questions to help and support not to place blame or find problems. Yes, your job is to find problems unless they find you first and then to help fix them, but it's not to place blame. It is to support and enhance your organization. And so being good at asking questions, and asking them well, is really important. 

Julie Groves: Any thoughts from you, Kate? 

Kate Miller: Yeah, I think something that stuck with me even before I got into risk management, I had a professor who told me it is OK not to know the answers to everything. It is OK to take a step back and say that's a great question, let me do some research and I think that that's always something that's beneficial in risk management. Specifically, because you never know what the answer is going to be, you never know what the question is going to be sometimes and trying to get to the heart of what's needed and what's going on with the scenario is always a little bit of a research project, so being willing to understand that you're not always going to have the answer and willing to do the research like Michelle said in the appropriate manner is always gonna be a benefit. 

Julie Groves: Well, that's all great advice. So, all you people who are out there listening now and you're dreaming of being a risk manager one day, please be sure to contact Michelle and Kate because they could give you lots of advice. So, but again, congratulations on your new newish jobs in the field and I think we're the field of risk management is very lucky to have both of you and URMIA is very glad to have you both. And please let us know how we could be helpful to you. So, I want to thank you both for being here today. It's been a great conversation. I think we could keep on talking but. If you're interested in the Young Professional’s community, we'll put information about that in the show notes. And you know the GoPros, that's just a test for right now. So don't look for any actual information about that yet, but we'll keep you posted on that. So, thank you both again, it was great to see you. 

Kate Miller: Thank you.  

Michelle Powell: Thank you. 

Julie Groves: Yes. And so, I hope everyone has a great afternoon and this wraps another episode of URMIA Matters. 

Narrator: You've been listening to URMIA matters. You can find more information about URMIA at www.urmia.org. For more information about this episode, check out the show notes available to URMIA members in the URMIA Network library.