Kim Medley

Tyson Director
Co-Principal Investigator, Team Skeet

“From the moment I interviewed for this job, I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my career.” 

Pivoting career directions takes courage. But for Kim Medley, Tyson’s director, the courage to start again led her to her dream job. 

“I was the vice president of a construction company, and I also spent several years working for Best Buy, traveling the country as a corporate representative, opening up new markets and creating new enormous box buildings. The money was good, but I had this deep-down despair with what I was doing. And I was contributing to urban sprawl. 

I had my undergraduate degree in biology and minor in environmental studies and chemistry. I quit my job and started taking graduate courses for my master’s in Springfield, Missouri where I lived. That was all there was available. Then I went on to do my PhD. 

I don’t regret any of it. All of those weird things that seemed circuitous really set me up for this role. I learned a lot of top-down hierarchical management with Best Buy. When I came back to academia, I observed how it respects everyone’s ideas from the bottom-up. As I got into this role here, I merged those two approaches. 

We have a great group of people here that are always trying to do better for one another. I’ve really shifted into a team-based approach, where we learn things from the world and apply it here as best as we can.”