Kristen Secviar is from Gurnee, Illinois, and studied as an undergrad at Ball State University in Muncie. Today she works as an account executive in software solutions for Jamf, an information technology (IT) company that collaborates with Apple.
Secviar went into the telecommunications department to learn the complexities of radio production while she attended Ball State, something mostly unrelated to what she does nowadays. During her time there, she also picked up a major in Spanish. Her graduation came around the time the economic recession of 2008 struck the country, opening up jobs of all kinds.
After being encouraged by her friends to take part in sales-training programs held by different corporations, she made herself more employable and soon earned herself a position at AT&T, where she worked for five years. Throughout her stay there, she moved to Atlanta, then St. Louis for a while, and eventually wound up back in Chicago. Everything panned out practically perfectly, too, with her mother still residing not too far away from the downtown area and with the city being where she met her partner. Both are reasons she’s fully established herself in the Midwest.
Being in sales isn’t the most stress-free experience. It surely comes with its fair share of difficulties and obstacles, but the fun is in how Secviar oftentimes has the chance to channel her inner Sherlock Holmes. Much of her vocation consists of an endless grind, but not one that always ends up in vain.
“The majority of my day-to-day is trying to find the right contacts to speak to. As a matter of human nature, people don't want to buy everything. You have to convince them to purchase your product. Sometimes that takes a lot of people-finding. It's very much a detective game. But that's probably the most fun I have because it’s an adrenaline rush, and has its extreme highs and extreme lows,” she said.
The state of a sales role has the tendency to turn a bit rowdy from time to time, what with having to meet monthly quotas, for example. Fortunately, Secviar is on her best watch at all times.
“At the end of the day, your life is dependent upon the quota. It does take a lot and usually determines how secure you feel. I've now been doing what I do for so long that I've been in situations scarier than quotas, where I'm presenting to nearly 500 people in a room,” she said.
Secviar’s been working from home for the better part of 15 years now. Doing so has presented her with plenty of opportunities to tend to her 2-year-old son, who will be turning 3 this upcoming August. Family time is important to her. She takes an active interest in the interests of her son, which, right now, happens to be everything having to do with trains. Together they’ll venture to nearby tracks to watch real trains go by, or they’ll settle for something less loud like buying tickets to the Illinois Railway Museum.
Last October, Secviar’s daughter, Margot, was stillborn. Those unfortunate circumstances have led her to start a Big Shoulders Fund, calling it “Margot’s Angel Scholarship Fund.” All is done with the intention of keeping her spirit alive through providing young girls with the means to pay their tuition at any local Catholic preschool or kindergarten.
“We started the fund after our daughter died, and so far we've exceeded the amount of one whole student’s tuition for the next school year. Now that my partner has graduated from grad school, we intend to get much more involved with Big Shoulders in a more meaningful way. Our daughter was the driving force behind that, and she’s inspired all of us to do things that are important for others and for the betterment of children in the community,” she said.
To relax, Secviar enjoys watering the plants outside of her house with a cool drink in her hand and a podcast playing. Between the time she spends in the gym and working on her 20-plus landscaping projects, she finds plenty of ways to fill her free time.
Living in unincorporated Porter County allows Secviar and her small family a neat amount of flexibility. Wedged right between Valparaiso and Chesterton, they’re able to take advantage of countless venues, making it so that there are seldom any dull moments in their lives.
“The community aspect of living over here is amazing. We're able to go and take part in everything in Chesterton, and then equally go and do that in Valpo as well. For Halloween, we went to the trick-or-treat event that Valpo had downtown, which was one weekend before the Chesterton one that we were also able to be at. Everything’s close, and that’s what’s so comforting,” she said.
If you would like to donate to Margot’s Angel Scholarship Fund, you can follow the link here.