I grew up in Texas and went to college in Oklahoma, but since high school, I always knew I wanted to live and work in New York City. I started off as a journalism major and switched to PR in my junior year, going on to get my master’s degree in strategic communication. I prioritized applying for jobs in New York and moved here in August 2021 for an entry level position at Rubenstein Communications. Since then, I’ve focused on learning from the incredibly smart and talented people around me, jumping at opportunities to try new things that I felt might interest me, and sharing my expertise with others.

I’ve worked on the PR team for the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree since I started as an account coordinator at Rubenstein Communications in 2021. I worked my way up from being the Tree Team assistant to being the Tree Team lead for the first time in 2024 at 26 years old. I’m still overcome with so much gratitude that my supervisors trusted me with this role and allowed me to grow as a communications professional while working on one of the most iconic symbols of the holiday season worldwide. I never imagined when I worked on my first tree season in 2021 that I would be leading the team in three years’ time. It is such an honor to tell the story of the tree’s donors every year.

You have to be okay with a lot of your work going unnoticed. In public relations, the majority of what we do doesn’t get credited to you publicly, and that’s by design. There are fun and exciting parts of the job, like staffing media events and red carpets that feel more visible, but 95% of what you do day-to-day is behind the scenes.

I still feel hesitancy to fully call myself a New Yorker (I subscribe to the “you need to live here for 10 years” rule), but when I travel and people ask me where I’m from, I now say “New York” instead of “Texas,” like I did for the first few years I lived here. Looking forward to 2031 when I can claim it with full confidence!