Ruth Brandvik is a Services Delivery Lead on the Services team and she joined EA in 2023. Ruth is from Edgewood, New Mexico, and attended Eastern New Mexico University and Florida State University.
How would you describe your role on the Services Team?
My role acts as a bridge and a communication conduit between the various internal technical teams and our partners. Services Delivery Leads, along with Project Coordinators, connect people in ways that remove barriers and blockers so the work can move forward. That can mean a lot of different things depending on the projects I’m working on. Sometimes it's finding the right people to connect to each other, sometimes it's making sure that everyone understands and is on the same page about whatever plan or decision needs to be made. And if people are not on the same page, we’re responsible for finding solutions to getting everyone on the same page.
What interested you in working at EA?
I've always been passionate about the holistic and formative change education can have on an individual and the ability it has to lift people out of poverty, provide upwards mobility, and make us stronger and smarter as a species. Education changed my life for the better and I want to give every kid the same opportunity. And since I am not a fairy godmother (yet!) with a magic wand, I was drawn to the organization’s mission to use data and research to drive meaningful changes in education. I taught in higher education for more than a decade, and I can remember many times sitting in a faculty meeting, being told numbers and data, but never knowing what the data meant or its purpose. EA helps districts, teachers, and administrators not only understand what the data is telling us, but also what we can do to impart change. It also helps that everyone at EA is so nice and lovely to work with.
We know that every day is different, but what would a typical day at EA look like for you?
It typically consists of several meetings, both external with partners and internal with project teams and organizational teams. Then there’s planning out the work required for the decisions agreed upon in meetings. Another part of my job consists of writing and proofreading memos, reports, and presentations to share findings and other information with partners and other functional teams. I help team members and partners with access to a variety of work management, file sharing, and knowledge base tools. Each day is a little different, which keeps things exciting.
What skills do you possess that you find helpful in your role?
Organization and communication. It is essential to what I do. And being a people person helps. I interact with a lot of different people in my role and relationship building is an important aspect of that. The team has to trust that I can support them when they need it and the partner has to trust that we can deliver what they need. Building those relationships is an important part of building that trust.
What is the most rewarding aspect of your role?
Solving a problem or removing obstacles so the work can move forward. I am a support-oriented person and genuinely enjoy helping people solve problems so they can focus on their work.
What is your favorite project that you’ve worked on at EA?
I can’t choose just one! Each one is unique in its own special way and has its own joys and challenges. I mostly work on Research and Analytics projects, which for me is a mix of growth, research, and evaluation projects. Each project is different, which keeps things interesting.
If you had to choose a different team to work on at EA, which team would you pick and why?
Probably Programs Operations. I love talking about processes and setting up systems and structures so that people are able to work more efficiently and easily. I have a fundamental drive to organize everything, although you wouldn’t know it by looking at my sock drawer.
What changes do you anticipate in your field in the next year?
AI is bringing a lot of interesting ideas and tools to project management. I think we’ll start seeing more of it as a tool embedded into everything that project managers do from taking meeting notes and scheduling meetings to writing contracts. Many of these tasks are already being rolled out in various tools and platforms. I think project management will always need humans to manage human teams, but it will be interesting to see how AI shapes project management in the coming years.
What is something you enjoy in your free time?
I love watching the various wild animals that roam my neighborhood (mostly birds and squirrels, with the occasional rabbit and fox thrown in the mix). I love baseball and everything about it and I try to catch as many games as I can during the season.
I play video games and board games, both solo and cooperative play with friends. I also have a group of friends that I play trivia with every week or so. I like hiking and camping and going to the beach when the weather is nice. And I love trying new restaurants when I can.
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a lot of things when I was a kid. I had the ballerina phase, mostly because my older sister was a ballerina and growing up, I wanted to be just like her. I had a phase where I wanted to be a lawyer because it looked cool and people paid you to argue, and I was always an opinionated kid. At one point I wanted to be an architect because it looked like a lot of drawing and model building, which seemed fun. I also wanted to be a horse rancher in Montana. Not anywhere else, but specifically Montana. Reflecting on my various career interests, the throughline seems to be that I wanted to work in careers that seemed fun and that I was passionate about.
What is something that you would tell your younger self about your career?
There is no such thing as the “right career path” and social milestones are all made up. There is only the right path for you and the milestones only matter if you think they do. Be open to the possibilities and learn as much as you can.