Graduated in 2014 with a major in Music Business. Principal instrument: drums.
Position: Corridor Manager at Union Pacific Railroad., a major railroad covering the western half of the United States, operating freight trains and also providing rails for Amtrak passenger trains. Rio works in the operations room, overseeing 3 – 5 train dispatchers — giving advice, helping out in emergencies or finding the right people to fix problems. Her very-intense job involves watching both people and tracking trains in real time, and her area is most of Arkansas and bits of other states.
Overview: Unsure of exactly what she wanted to do after graduation, Rio moved back home to Omaha, Nebraska. She got a part-time job as a receptionist in a funeral home while unsuccessfully looking for a music industry job. At the funeral home she was promoted to directors assistant and took on more hours, but it wasn’t a real career. About a year and a half after graduation, Rio’s father, a retired railroad employee, suggested she apply for a railroad job. She did, and after a long wait, was told to start training.
Training was very intense, with biweekly tests where a single failure to hit the high required score meant you were let go. But she made it through the 3-month program. 3 months of supervised on-the-job training followed, where she had to learn the details of every position. Rio then started as a dispatcher at the “emergency desk” ready to fill in for anyone else. It was a high-pressure job, but she handled it well. In January 2020, after about three and a half years, she took a promotion from dispatcher to her current position of corridor manager.
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You can see Rio’s LinkedIn profile here.
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Choice Quotes: “It was refreshing to learn something new and then really try to perfect my own management skills as a craft. In my new position I get to meet new people and create positive relationships, which I enjoy. Networking (with others at Union Pacific) has been a really nice part of the job.”
“The standard that Berklee held me to and the amount of work I put myself through. — I took many credits per semester and finished a semester early. I learned to buckle down, what works for me and doesn’t work to help me learn and retain material. I credit Berklee with that process of learning things that were foreign to me. I started that crash course at the railroad and the constant tests. That work ethic and handling the stress prepared me for this in the best way possible.”
“Folks in this career find they’re making a lot more money than average. But if it’s not working for you, don’t be discouraged. It’s a very rough field of work. A lot of folks say “BNSF (another major railroad) stands for Better Not Start a Family”. It’s both the work and the type of hours you work. It’s physically draining. After a stressful night a lot of people walk out of the building and can’t remember where they parked or realize they forgot to eat lunch.”
“After Berklee, I was like, ‘What if I don’t do something with music?” it almost made me feel guilty about going to Berklee and getting the musical education that many would kill for. Yet I was still able to learn good skills and apply them to my field now. I don’t feel it was a wasted education. I don’t think so. I feel like I was able to get something out of it. I do have that accreditation that I went there and I’m proud to be a Berklee Alumni! I want to come back to Boston sometime and bring my husband and kids and say hi to my old professors and show them where I went to school.”
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