cover story: lisa b-k

Curiosity is something that has driven me my whole life. I want to know more about people— why they do what they do, why they like what they like. What can we do together?

Lisa Bralts-Kelly (or Lisa B-K, to many of us) moved to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois the same year I did in 1996, and I imagine we met pretty quickly. Our lives overlapped thanks to Geoff Merrit (who joins us in this issue's The 4Cast). Lisa worked for him at Parasol Records, and I worked for him at That's Rentertainment. From a distance she was (and still very much is) a magical woman who looked cool, played cool, consumed cool, worked cool, mom'ed cool, and knew no other way but cool.

Getting to know her more and more over the years, her cool was not a facade nor faded. It only radiated brighter. She is genuinely curious about people and how to connect with them. I find speaking with her to be one of the most comfortable conversations to engage in (every time). She learns your thing and then wants to share all the things she knows about said thing. Her brain is always building, networking, creating... tinkering. She sees the vibrant community she lives in and wants to support it. She wants to add to it.

Her career is proof of that—starting out in marketing for different record labels—including the one we met at, Parasol Records; moving on to food-centric missions like Common Ground Food Coop, Eastern Illinois Foodbank, and Urbana's Market at the Square—one of Illinois' largest farmers markets; finding a bit of overlap of all her interests at WILL Public Radio which gets her more on the University of Illinois track that took her to Siebel Center for Design and where she is now at the College of Applied Health Sciences ("the punkest college in the University"). The through line is marketing, but the intentions and results are so much more.

Let's have her tell you about it, though. It will be way more... cool »»» https://youtu.be/GJEwMkGwODo