Campus News

by Sara Myers, Digital Media & Communications Specialist 

For alumna Lisa Blakeley-Snyder (‘17), traveling far from home was not in the cards for college. She did not want to go too far from Rockford, her home since middle school. She looked at schools in Wisconsin and near Chicago, but she also knew she wanted to continue playing softball.

It was her Winnebago High School softball coach, Annie Getschel, who told her about Rockford University, where Getschel was coaching softball at the time. 

“She didn’t persuade me by any means, but it had the best financial aid package of any of the schools that I toured,” Blakeley-Snyder said. “Which was important because throughout my time at the university, I never took out any student loans and I just paid as I was going.”

Blakeley-Snyder received her B.S. in psychology and a minor in business from RU in 2017. She said that earlier in life, she wanted to “change the world” and help people, so she originally planned to pursue a career in counseling or social work. 

Some of her favorite classes at RU were taught by Dr. Joel Lynch in the Psychology Department. In those classes, she realized she could help people be happier in their careers if she worked in the human resources (HR) realm and decided to pursue a minor in business.

Though she did not live on campus, she made sure to be involved during her undergrad years. One of Blakeley-Snyder’s good friends was an RA (Resident Advisor) who hosted many dorm events that Blakeley-Snyder would attend and help coordinate. 

“One of my favorite ones was when she had a luau-themed spring event,” she said. “I helped her set up the punch bowl. Then we made sure to decorate a little gathering space in the dorm room with Hawaiian decorations, and we had our Hawaiian shirts on.”

She also participated in intramurals, like basketball and dodgeball, and attended student life events like Casino Night and Bingo. In addition, she played on the softball team while she pursued her bachelor’s degree. 

She decided to further her education and received her MBA in 2020. During that time she worked in the RU’s Office of Admissions and coached softball. Blakeley-Snyder had multiple roles in the admissions office including Undergraduate Admissions Office Aide, Adult & Graduate Admission Specialist, and Adult & Graduate Admission Recruiter. 

She left RU in 2020 to pursue a career at Road Ranger where she still works today.

At Road Ranger, she started as an HR representative. She had known for a while that she wanted to get into the HR field, but she was having trouble finding a company that would hire her due to her lack of HR experience. She explained that Road Ranger was the company that gave her a chance.

Blakeley-Snyder soon moved into a recruiting manager role. She knew that with her recruiting background, it would be something that she could excel in.

“One of my favorite parts of my job is I have a lot of autonomy and I make a lot of important decisions for the company. I’m interested in doing that, and I travel almost once a month.”

She’s been able to meet and train people for in-person, entry-level jobs like a cashier for one of the local truck stops. She adds that her MBA program helped her grow confidence in herself for the position she’s in now.

“The MBA program helped me—not that I was super reserved— but it helped get me more elevated and out of my comfort zone,” she said. “To the point where I said, ‘We’re a bulk-hiring group, I have no problem doing group presentations in front of 40 people or directing different big top items, including partnering with people in a much higher position, and then also knowing my voice has a reason.’”

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This article is part of the 2023-2024 issue of Catalyst.