Heather Merrill
It's been a privilege to design experiences for companies like Spectrum, IBM, PayPal & Western Union over my 15 year career. I love collaborating with a team, letting the great ideas fly, and then making them actually happen. My biggest joys are enabling new designers to excel and to foster a winning team culture.
Aside from my job, you'll find me hanging with my family, playing the oboe, enjoying the outdoors and cooking for friends.
My Story
I started out as an oboist. Yeah...crazy career, but I loved studying music at the University of Colorado in Boulder, mixed in with some math and computer science courses. I also loved helping people, which led to non-profit work abroad in Kenya and England, where I provided IT support for SIL, a linguistics and literacy non-profit. (While living abroad, I still enjoyed playing the oboe in the Nairobi Orchestra and the Oxford Sinfonia!)
I knew a UX career was for me, when I started designing websites in my non-profit job. I had sticky notes on my wall, ran usability tests, organized, categorized and read every book I could find on UX. Then, to formalize my passion, I got a masters degree from the University of Denver in Knowledge and Info Tech. My first job was at PayPal, where I received fantastic mentoring. Later, at Spectrum, I honed my leadership and collaboration skills. I'm thankful to everyone who invested in me and seek to use the rest of my career enjoying my job and helping others achieve success.