MEMBER SPOTLIGHT | DECEMBER 2003

Krista Rogers
From Family Roots to Student to Present-Day Freelancer

Krista is one of the few AWC members who can say the seeds of her AWC membership started at home. Her mother was a freelance writer and book author involved in the association when it was Theta Sigma Phi, the women's journalism honorary society. Growing up, Krista was "very familiar" with the organization.

It was only natural when Krista attended Iowa State University in Ames that she would become a member of the organization. By that time, the group had dropped its honorary Greek origins and repackaged itself as Women in Communication (WICI). In 1976 Krista was president of the student chapter. She graduated from Iowa State with two bachelor's degrees-one in journalism and the other in industrial engineering.

As a student she interned during the summer at Westinghouse Electric Corporation. After she graduated she made a smooth transition from academia to the corporate world, working 14 months in corporate public relations for Westinghouse in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania. In 1980, she moved on to work in employee communications for a Westinghouse subsidiary, Thermo-King, Inc., in Minneapolis , Minnesota. She says that for a college graduate, it was a "dream job," exposing her to many new (at the time) modes of communications, such as video training. Krista says she had "a lot of fun" during her 2.5-year work stint at Thermo-King.

By that time Krista had married, and she moved to Hutchinson , Kansas , because of her husband, Barry's, job at Cargill. Living in Hutchinson, Krista did some freelancing and remained connected to WICI through the Wichita chapter. Her freelance career started in 1983, and that's what she has been doing ever since. The only exception is a part-time job she held at a Lawrence publishing company after she moved to the Kansas City area.

In our conversation, Krista stated that the main attraction of belonging to AWC is "its personal and business connections." A meeting with Kirsten McBride, a current AWC member, in November 1982 led to a referral that is the "basis of what she does" today in her business. Krista was president of WICI during the 1992-1993 year. It was the year, she said, that the chapter won the "Outstanding Chapter Award" from the national association. Krista has also participated in our chapter as VP-Special Events, a position that no longer exists. While in that role, the group staged a member's one-woman play, "First Lady Lou" by Rebecca Christian, about Lou Henry Hoover, wife of Herbert Hoover. The organization also published two editions of a local version of "Writer's Market" that listed possible markets for freelancers.

Her current involvement has been coordinator of the team that has organized the Holiday Silent Auction for the past three years. Last year, as a result of her participation in the auction, she won the Legacy Award, given by KC-AWC "for longstanding service and outstanding contribution." In 1991 Krista received the chapter's Leading Change Award.

Her professional focus is her business, KFR Communications Associates, a communications firm she has owned for the past 20 years. Her firm offers expertise in technical communication, marketing support communication and training development focused on performance improvement. She has worked with a long list of companies, among them Sprint Corp.; Burns & McDonnell; Helzberg Diamonds, Inc.; Iowa Energy Center ; Creative Courseware; and History Cooks, publisher of a book on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Krista's personal life centers around her family—husband, Barry, owner of his own construction engineering firm, and her three children: Ben, 20, a sophomore at Southern Nazarene University in suburban Oklahoma City; Katherine, 15, a sophomore at Shawnee Mission East; and Brian, 11, a sixth-grader at Prairie Elementary School. Besides working at her business and being involved in the chapter, Krista finds time to attend her children's soccer games, visit her son at college and make return trips to Iowa State , her alma mater, for Homecoming weekend.