About Angi Heller
I am originally from Iowa; however, I’ve lived in Nebraska more than half my life. I am not an Iowa fan, but I do love Iowa State. I live in Bennington with my husband, 10 year-old son, and two large dogs. I attended UNI in my hometown for two years, with the thought I wanted to be a teacher. When I decided to move to Nebraska, I planned to stay just a year or two and then head to one of the coasts to explore different options. During those first two years, I volunteered at a homeless shelter and was later asked to work there. This work changed my focus from moving to explore to a desire to work with people. I completed my Bachelor’s in Family Science through UNO and began working with youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice system. Over the last 20 years, I was fortunate enough to work with innovative, future-focused, and challenging systems. I found myself always drawn to new initiatives, new organizations, and new positions; these allowed me to use my strong analytical, intuitive, innovative, and future-focused thinking. When another organization “won” the RFP and my organization’s contract was ending, I realized I was ready to move to a new field where I could pursue new challenges and continue to grow professionally.
What is your position at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln?
I am an Engagement Zone Coordinator (EZC) with Nebraska Extension in Zone 8. This is a new position to Extension in 2020; however, it has been in the concept phase for nearly two years. As an EZC, our top 3 priorities are to support and build up our Extension talent, foster strong partnerships within our communities, and to increase collaborative, beneficial relationships between UNL and our communities.
What drew you to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln?
I was immediately drawn to every aspect in the job description for the EZC role and that this was a new concept/position. Every experience throughout the application and interview process just felt right. I knew that while I didn’t have experience in Extension or the university system, I felt at home in every interaction. I got the sense that Extension leadership values diversity of thought, which I highly value, as it’s been shown to strengthen organizations in significant ways.
What aspect of working in an educational setting do you enjoy the most?
It’s exciting to see Extension identify community needs/wants and work to integrate unbiased research to develop programming that can empower and strengthen our communities.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I struggle with this question, as I don’t believe any of my achievements are solely my own, but achieve through the collaboration and support of others, I consider my greatest achievement to be raising our son with my husband. Throughout these first 10 years of our son’s life, I have had to learn how to be vulnerable, not always be in charge/right, appreciate other styles of parenting, be more intentional, and love more than I ever knew possible. Our son is kind, is a friend to all, is funny, healthy, and has said he “likes who he is”. This is the best achievement I could be part of, raising a good human.
What is something that most people don’t know about you?
I used to be able to have conversations in French and American Sign Language. I have lost most of those skills, but still find myself using bits and pieces at times. I would love to get into a space where I can develop greater conversational skill in other languages again.
What is your life like outside of work?
We love being outdoors and try to get outside as much as possible. We have a very small cabin on the Elkhorn we thoroughly enjoy, love to kayak, go on bike rides, and of course—walk our dogs. During the quarantine/isolation period, we also started finding old movies to share with our son—which has been a blast to see him find humor in movies we love!