When Jeanette Hohman graduated from UCCS, her plans were different than the life she is living now. But she said, as an account manager for nonprofit public radio station 91.5 KRCC FM, her career has been fulfilling in ways she couldn’t have anticipated.

“I love helping organizations make meaningful connections with KRCC’s audience across 23,000 square miles of southeastern Colorado, while raising money for the essential community service our station provides,” she said.

Jeanette has been with KRCC since 2000 when she became a volunteer. A DJ training class at the station also opened a door for her to host her own music show every Saturday from midnight to 2 a.m. After that, in 2009, she became a weekend host guiding listeners through their Saturday and Sunday morning with news, music, and a familiar voice.

“This led to me getting to meet lots of NPR legends like Carl Kasell of “Morning Edition” and “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me” fame, Ira Glass of “This American Life,” and Scott Simon of “Weekend Edition,”” Jeanette said.

Now, her job includes managing the corporate support needs of close to 150 clients from nationally recognized brands to local shops and nonprofits, helping to write on-air scripts, and being a valuable voice of advocacy for independent, unbiased news and entertainment.

“KRCC provides such an essential community service not just in Colorado Springs and Pueblo, but in more rural areas that might not have many options for broadcast media,” Jeanette said. “In the couple of decades I’ve been here, we’ve grown exponentially from an eclectic music/news split-format station to our journalists being recognized nationally with Edward R. Murrow and Associated Press awards and more.”

That growth, she said, wouldn’t be possible without the financial support and the buy-in of the organizations who use part of their marketing budget to support the station.

For Jeanette, her current path is all thanks to her choice to volunteer for an organization she believes in and a chance visit to Colorado Springs while she was attending another nearby university.

“I visited friends in Colorado Springs one weekend and I fell in love with the area, applied to UCCS a few months later, and made the move to Colorado Springs during the summer of 1996,” Jeanette said.

After earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree UCCS, she had an internship at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver and did freelance work archiving for the studio of Edgar Britton in Denver.

“I had taken Gerry Riggs’ Gallery Management program my senior year at UCCS and envisioned a career working with artists, but life took me in another direction entirely!” Jeanette said.

The highlight of her time at UCCS was a class trip to New York in the fall of 1998.

“We enjoyed artist studio tours, a Chuck Close interview at the Met, a private tour of the MOMA, and more. I started a friendship with my roommate on the trip and she’s still one of my closest friends 26 years later,” she said.

Another impactful decision while at UCCS was her participation in theater productions.

“I pushed through my fear of public speaking while at UCCS, which is definitely helpful in my current career in the radio world!” she said.

Her advice for current students is to keep learning and be adaptable.

“Life may take you in a drastically different direction in 10 or 15 years. Be open to it,” Jeanette said. “As one of my favorite mentors always says, ‘Change is hard, and change is good!’”