Rhiannon Troutman, 2011

Ever since she was a teenager, Rhiannon Troutman has loved working in retail and always dreamed of opening her own shop.  At Lewis & Clark, Rhiannon’s favorite classes allowed her to work with people and do participant observation.  She loved being able to turn her observations into valuable data.  The most valuable skill Rhiannon learned as a SOAN major is the ability to approach a problem from multiple angles, without judgement.  Since she is able to understand the complexity of people and situations she was a valuable candidate for retail positions.  She quickly moved up in retail from sales clerk to managerial positions which gave her the foundation to open her own shop.  Rhiannon’s SOAN background helped lay the foundation she needed to become a successful small business owner and manage a team of employees.  Rhiannon feels that studying SOAN is beneficial to almost all careers since most jobs require you to interact with other people, whether it be coworkers, a team you manage, clients, or in her case, customers and employees.