Meet Rachel Rich

I always struggle to come up with fun facts. Not because I don't have any, but because I have had so many weird things happen to me, or random coincidences occur, that it is difficult to just choose one. I could go simple with a classic, "I'm 6 feet tall." Or I could reach the extreme with, "The hospital I was born in was featured many times in The Sopranos." There's also random in-betweens: I had a pet hedgehog growing up, I could be found on Google Street view, I've flown planes - the list truly goes on. My friends have an ongoing saying: "Of course you did!" Each fun fact, I believe, has shaped me to be the person I am today.

 

I was born to be a Jersey Girl. It became an unfulfilled prophecy the moment my parents and I moved form Jersey to North Carolina, and then to Kentucky. Having a Northern personality in a Southern atmosphere allowed me to be the naive person who believed I was truly "blessed" when I was told "bless your heart." I have a reputation of never shutting up about how much I love my state. Only being seven when we moved to Kentucky, I was able to grow up riding horses, playing any and all sports, and listen to the best music, all while being surrounded by surreal landscapes. It took about ten years for me to feel like a true Kentuckian. Traveling and seeing cities within the state beyond my comfort walls of Louisville, gave me the experience of understanding a place in its entirety. From that moment forward, I learned that the best way to represent or fall in love with something was to jump in head first and learn everything.

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​Philanthropy has always been in my life. I owe that to my parents. My mother and father are the true definitions of servant leaders. Putting others first and leading by example was one of the first life lessons I remember learning. I started volunteering at Louisville Public Media the moment we moved there. I participated in membership drives, events at local fairs, and became a walking promoter of an incredible group. I volunteered in high school through Y-Corps, a YMCA based volunteering program, that emersed students into a week-long opportunity to meet new people, learn about different communities, and preform acts of service throughout many regions. I became so involved, I led a group one year. It's ironic I went on to study at a university that considers themselves, "The Volunteers."

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Entering college, I wanted to do everything. If you asked me what I wanted to study, I would have given you a list of potential majors I could see myself thriving in. Astrophysics, Law, Art History, Classics, Aerospace Engineering, Accounting, Journalism - just to name a few. Notice how marketing is missing. I decided to follow my love for planes and flight, and enrolled at The University of Tennessee as an Aerospace Engineering undergraduate student. After my first semester, I was rapidly becoming aware that engineering was not for me. While the material was interesting, I realized that I didn't want to sit at a desk building a screw for a project that may or may not be picked up in eight to twelve months from now. The question of switching my major came up after freshman year, and I decided to keep pushing. I didn't switch majors until half-way through my junior year of college. 

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The decision wasn't made lightly. I was leaving friends, professors, and a comfortability that I had spent two and a half years growing. My "northern" ability to quickly adjust and adapt had to kick into high gear. While deciding what the perfect degree for me was, I came across marketing. The degree offered me the ability to work in any field I found interesting. It crossed-off everything I was looking for: a digital aspect, a fast paced atmosphere, an evolving job, and a way to promote a brand, company, or vision that I could personally attach to. At the end of the day, it was something that I had already been doing for most of my life. Being an advocate for Public Media, laying my heart out for an entire state, attempting to learn as much as I can about an unknown - it's all there.

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In classes, I learned that at the center of good marketing, lays the customer. My job as a marketer starts and ends with the consumers' thoughts, actions, beliefs, and needs. I have found that marketing is a technical, business term, for the one thing I grew up doing: Servant Leadership.