MONDAY MENTION
Casey Brinkman, Class of 2011 Casey Brinkman, a 2011 graduate of SEU, received her degree in Psychology in December that year. She went on to be offered a position as a Social Media Manager at a marketing agency in 2013. She told us, “It wasn't the path I had planned, but I discovered that I really enjoyed digital marketing.” She continued working and developing in her career through this agency till she moved into a corporate position for a mortgage company in South Carolina. Later in 2017, Casey decided to pursue starting her own business on the side. She wanted to work doing consulting and managing marketing campaigns for small businesses, and she did so while maintaining her corporate position. She left the mortgage industry and moved into the pharma industry while continuing to grow her business and learning all along the way. In February of 2020, Casey decided to leave her corporate role to pursue her digital marketing business full-time. She and her husband Chris run her digital marketing business. Although he is still working full-time for an outside company, they plan on him joining full-time in early 2021. In the past 3 years, they have served over 25 different companies from start-ups to corporations, providing marketing strategy and campaign management. Most importantly, they make a great team together. Casey met her husband Chris through Christian Mingle roughly two years after graduating. They have two
daughters, Sophia who will be 3 this month, and Evelyn who is 4 months old. They attend Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC, and have enjoyed serving in various roles such as small group leaders and the children's ministry. When asked how Southeastern helped prepare her for what she is doing, Casey said that when she started in marketing, she felt like she was not utilizing her psychology degree. “As I learned more about marketing strategy, I discovered that I use a lot of the fundamentals I learned in my degree when I'm building out strategies and campaigns.” She mentioned how she has to challenge her in thinking about audience personas, what draws people to click, and what makes people buy. Overall she would say that her degree was the perfect foundation for her career as “people's social media and digital habits are very behavior-driven.” Casey cherishes memories of Southeastern and taking beach trips, serving as an RA over Esperanza hall, working as a Student Manager for Chartwells, summers as a GRA. She shared how she often worked during school years and didn't participate in on-campus events. But, “I made really great friends that deeply impacted my life. Anastasia Jones-Downing, Becky Thomas, Jeff Thenor, Ashlee Muehler, Saralyn Duke - I went through some tough stuff in my personal life while at SEU and these friends helped me through it. I wouldn't be who I am today without them.”
A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N