Hey y’all! I’m Lori Johnson and I’m junior from Louisville, KY! I’m studying Integrated Strategic Communications, and Community Leadership and Development; I know it’s a mouthful, but thankfully they’re two different majors! I’m also getting a certificate of Global Studies. Choosing where to go to college was a tough choice, but in the end my Big Blue Nation won out. The incredible sense of spirit and community is what really sealed the deal for me, everywhere you go, you see blue! It also didn’t hurt that my dad was also a Wildcat and I get to continue that tradition. Being a student at UK has given me the most amazing opportunities. I get to be in a great campus ministry, active in meaningful organizations and I have a really awesome job!

I am engineer which means I love to solve problems – to find solutions, particularly when it comes to the environment. I am an optimist – deep down I believe a solution exists to most any problem though we may not be willing to accept the tradeoffs associated with that solution. I am also teacher at heart. I love working with students. My goal is to help students become engaged learners and critical thinkers.

As the newest employee in my role as the Department Manager, I have found myself warmly welcomed by this ROTC community with the Cadre and Cadets. The community is so strong among the students that I have been drawn and begun attending morning physical training (PT) sessions with our team. My attendance has been well received, and many of the cadets tell me how they feel that our entire Cadre and staff team is extremely connected, and that this is very encouraging to them. We train our cadets to lead with strong emphasis on values & ethics, personal development, officership, tactics & techniques, critical thinking, and problem solving within the ROTC program. The cadets spend much of their time building a team environment, and working together to accomplish the goals of this program. We strive to engage them in a learning environment focused on being strong leaders and building lifelong personal and professional development. Our cadets are sharp and focused. We have students in our program with exceptional academic achievements, and this program encourages them to be lifelong learners and educators. Detachment 290 is a team, we are a community, and most importantly we are family, and I could not be more proud to be a part of this unified force.

I have been married to my husband, Judd, for over 11 years and we have two little girls, ages 8 and 10.  We have a beagle name Petey, a cat named Lucy, and a bunch of fish.  I moved from my hometown in Eastern North Carolina (located in the “inner banks” as it is now called) to attend graduate school at UK and to be closer to Judd. My life is very busy with the little ones and there is not much time to spare (you should see my ‘mommy calendar’!).  The College of Arts and Sciences Advising unit became my home away from home seven years ago and prior to my career in advising, I was a state vocational rehabilitation counselor for the KY Vocational Rehabilitation Department and The KY Office for the Blind.  

I tend to view professional development opportunities with a slight degree of suspicion.   “So, you think I should take time away from my cram-packed schedule to attend an all-day session with an ambitious and somewhat ambiguous title like Managing Multiple Priorities?  I’m barely staying on top of things as it is, and besides, ain’t nobody got time for that.”  However, if I have learned anything from Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, it is that effective people make time to plan ahead and work on developing good habits.  So, I signed up for Friday’s training.

Through a combination of humorous personal anecdotes, hands-on activities, and straightforward wisdom, our trainer, Sally O’Boyle of Fred Pryor Seminars, guided us from a general assessment of our time management challenges to series of actionable steps to remedy our personal management pitfalls.  For me, the lessons on priority-setting and procrastination were especially helpful.  Rather than go into too much detail there, here are a few tips from which we all can benefit:

My husband, Bill, and I live here in Lexington and have a 24 year old daughter, Courtney.  We also have a 9 year old Chocolate Lab, Sammi, who thinks she is 2 and keeps us on our toes.  I am originally from Lexington, but was transplanted to Charlotte in 1981 thanks to IBM.  I returned to Lexington after my freshman year of college in 1989 to spend the summer with my grandmother.  I fell in love with Lexington and didn’t return to North Carolina, and decided to establish my residency before continuing my education.  During that year, I became a mom and had to put my college off for a while. 

I grew up in Middlesboro, KY. The town is as far south and east in the state that you can go, situated on the KY, TN and VA border. I met my husband Bill while performing in the local community theater. We moved to Lexington to attend UK in 2002. We love it so much, we stayed. I graduated from UK with a BA in English in 2005. We welcomed our first child into the world this past April.

Before working as a full time employee here, I was a manager at for a residential property leasing company. I’ll never forget the day I decided to apply for a job at UK. It was a beautiful day in September, blue sky and the sun shining brightly. I was driving through campus thinking, I’d really like to be back here, this is where I need to be. A few weeks later, I was hired! After six years, I still believe that this was the best decision I could have made.

What do you do in your spare time? Between a seven month old, Piper, and a nine year old English Springer Spaniel, Blaze, I don’t have much spare time. Evenings and weekends are spent with our little family. I wouldn’t have it any other way!

A World of Rivers (A&S 100-011, Tuesday, 4:00 PM - 4:50 PM)
Alan Fryar, Earth and Environmental Sciences

I was born in Johnson City, Tennessee and moved to Kentucky my 3^rd grade year. I have 4 half siblings (2 sisters and 2 brothers) and I am the oldest of the 5. I started working for UK in the summer of 1999 as a STEPS employee after graduating high school a year early. I graduated with a BS in Family in Consumer Sciences in the 2006 from the University of Kentucky.   

1. What do you do in your spare time?

I have a 9 year daughter name Kianti who speaks Spanish as her second language and is in competitive gymnastics. I have volunteered with/ for CASA which is a Court Appointed Special Advocate for abused and neglected children in Fayette County for past few years.