Alumna Speaks at Global Congress

The three-day event brought together professionals from around the country, many from Fortune 500 companies. They came to explore, learn, and share insights and ideas to help lead their organizations to better outcomes, while influencing change in today’s global environment. The professional team builders brought real-work insight into project and business challenges and how they are evolving in the workplace.

As an invited speaker, Abby shared her experiences as a project management educator at Nemours duPont Hospital for Children in her talk, “Creating a Culture of Enterprise Management.” She explained, “I was pleased to share my experience and knowledge with others, and I learned things from the audience as well. It was gratifying to realize that the materials I helped to develop and teach to my fellow associates have led to greater success across the enterprise by fostering more engaged teams. Not only that—through my presentation I may help others achieve similar results in their industries. I was honored to have been selected.”

Currently, Abby is working on ten different projects at Nemours, with one being particularly exciting. Working with a team to integrate their ‘smart’ IV pumps with Epic, their medical records system, Abby’s project will eliminate the need for clinicians to manually program pumps for each patient, thus improving patient safety. “While I often do not have direct interaction with patients, it is rewarding to know that the work I do can help our clinicians improve the quality of care we deliver to our patients.”

Abby did not set out to be a project manager, having graduated from Juniata College with dual majors in English and Spanish Language and Literature. In 2010, she had the opportunity to lead an interdisciplinary team as part of the hospital’s expansion project and realized that she had found a perfect career fit for herself. She joined PMI and earned her Project Management Professional (PMP) certification in 2011. She accepted a position in Nemours’ Enterprise Strategy and Project Management office in 2012.

As a Sanford Upper School student from grades 10–12, Abby learned how to establish a system to stay organized in her classes, track homework assignments and due dates, take notes, and prepare for tests. She shared, “This system of laying out my objectives, making a plan to accomplish them, and creating a schedule with specific due dates is basic project management methodology. I did not know at the time that Sanford was preparing me for my eventual profession! I believe that all students should be taught these techniques, as they will be very helpful in their adult lives, regardless of their career path.”

Congratulations, Abby, on your recent success. Good luck as you continue to create and develop projects that will position Nemours to enhance the lives of others.