Meet CO+HOOTS Foundation Executive Director Kristin Romaine
What do you get when you combine a typhoon, a tornado and a genius?
You get Albert Einstein.
What if you add a bad case of work ethic and a little bit of crazy?
You get Kristin Romaine.
She is the brain and muscle behind the CO+HOOTS Foundation, CO+HOOTS’ new non-profit arm/501c3 organization that has a mission to influence and support community growth by engaging the power of coworkers, independent contractors and small business.
Read all about Romaine below:
Name: Kristin Romaine
Nickname: Like the Lettuce
Title: CO+HOOTS Foundation Executive Director
I have always believed in the power of collaboration and people coming together to become collectively more awesome.
Why did you want to work at CO+HOOTS?
I have always believed in the power of collaboration and people coming together to become collectively more awesome. This opportunity is giving me a chance to combine all of my great passions– community, nonprofit, collaboration, and entrepreneurship. I also have respected Jenny and Odeen (and many of the CO+HOOTIANS here) for a very long time as friends and having the opportunity to learn from them in this role is a dream come true.
What are your hopes and dreams for CO+HOOTS?
Phoenix has a lot of big aspirations about what they want to do as a city via the entrepreneurial and small business movement. I truly believe that CO+HOOTS and our members are the leader in this area of growth and that we can empower and grow not just our own businesses but the community at large by coming together for the common good. I’m excited to serve as a connector and leverage ideas with skilled workers who know how to make it happen.
What are your own personal hopes and dreams?
My life long goal is to make a transformational gift to a non-profit organization– meaning a gift that takes the organization to an entirely new level.
If you had 100 billion dollars, you would …
Travel the world investing in micro business loans and healthcare infrastructure for people with big dreams, paint glow in the dark bike lanes all over Phoenix, open a tiny house community with live/work space for people with disabilities, invest in an endowment for CO+HOOTS Fdn and buy my husband T.J. an MLS soccer team and a brewery.
What should the CO+HOOTS community know about you?
My grandmother, who passed away when I was 11, is still the biggest hero in my life. She was an immigrant, a hard worker and despite her own meager financials, was in her own little way a philanthropist. She was the most genuine woman that I ever met. She stood for what she believed in and put others before herself. I wear her necklace everyday as a reminder to strive to be that kind of woman. It has two chains because she was so scared that one might break and she would lose her diamond on the necklace.
I listen to a version of Eye of the Tiger every single day to ROCKY UP.
What is that one big project you’d like to do? In CO+HOOTS or out of CO+HOOTS?
I am really excited about the four main focus areas of the CO+HOOTS Foundation– I think getting the coworkers exchange program going and being able to send CO+HOOTIANS out to the world to represent– would be amazing. Outside of CO+HOOTS, I am very involved with the refugee community and my husband and I hope to at one point become parents and adopt a child.
What is one thing people don’t know about you?
I listen to a version of Eye of the Tiger every single day to ROCKY UP.
Why are you so awesome?
I listen to a lot of early 90s hip hop.
Who’s more awesome … Jenny? Or Odeen?
Baby Poondingo. She is going to take the awesome of both people to a whole new level.
To learn more about the CO+HOOTS Foundation, click here.
Follow the CO+HOOTS Foundation on Twitter (@COHOOTSfdn) and Facebook.